Heart Failure Flashcards
What is heart failure?
It is when the heart cannot pump enough blood to supply the body’s demands
- This depends on whether the right, left or both sides of the heart are involved
- clinical syndrome of neurohormonal malaptation
What are the two causes of heart failure?
- systolic HF-the heart is not pumping enough
- Diastolic HF- heart is not filling enough
- coronary artery disease(ischaemic heart disease)
- valvular heart disease
- myocardial infarction
- pericardial disease
- hypertension
- renal disease
- infiltrative disease: sarcoidosis, amyloidosis
- diabetes mellitus
What is cardiac output?
HR multiplied by Stroke volume
What is the Frank Starling mechanism?
Loading the ventricles with blood during diastole increases the sroke volume
What are the causes of left sided heart failure?
- dilated cardiomyopathy
- Ischaemic Heart Disease
- Long standing hypertension
What are the clinical signs of pulmonary edema?
- dyspnea
- orthopnea
- rales in the lungs
What do ACE inhibitors do?
They dilate blood vessels
What is cor pulmonale?
It is when chronic lung disease causes right heart hypertrophy and failure
What are the causes of congestive cardiac failure?
- coronary artery disease
- Diabetes mellitus
- Hypetrension
How does biventricular cardiac failure present as?
- Both symptoms of left and right heart failure
- and general symptoms like fatigue and tachycardia and nocturia
Who are the people that are affected the most with CHF?
> 60 years old
What are the risk factors that cause CHF?
- obesity
- smoking
- COPD
- Alcohol abuse
- recreational drugs
What does the body do to try and counteract the decreased cardiac output?
- There will be an increase in adrenergic response: increase in blood pressure, heart rate and ventricular contractility
- The renin angiotensin aldosterone system will be activated which will increase angiotensin II secretion which will lead to peripheral vasoconstriction leading to hypertension
- Increase in the brain natriuretic peptide:
What are the general features of congestive cardiac failure?
- Tachycardia with arrythmias
- pulsus alternans
- S3/S4 gallop
- Cachectic
- Fatigue, nocturia, dyspnea
What are the clinical symptoms of left sided heart failure?
- Dyspnea
- Orthopnea
- Pulmonary edema
- Paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea
- acute shortness of breath and coughing during sleep