HLK Week 2 Flashcards
What limits the ability of a blood vessel to expand and accommodate blood?
The connective tissue layer surrounding it.
What are the 4 layers in a blood vessel (not present in all vessels)?
- Endothelial layer
- Elastic layer
- Smooth muscle layer
- Fibrous tissue layer
How does arterial compliance work to accommodate a pressure pulse?
Blood exerts a perpendicular pressure on the walls of the artery, which expand to accommodate it and then further propel it forward as the vessel returns to normal. As compliance decreases with age/pathology, pressure in the artery rises.
Total peripheral resistance is determined in large part by what type of vessel?
Arterioles
How is resistance related to viscosity and the length and radius of vessels?
- Proportional to viscosity and length
- Inversely proportional to 4th power of radius
What is responsible for most of the control of vasoconstriction in peripheral vascular beds?
Neurally secreted norepinephrine acting on alpha receptors
Give an example of how local control can overrule sympathetic activity:
Exercising one arm: sympathetic activity is the same throughout the body, but because of local control blood flow is only increased in the muscle being exercised.
Contrast the actions of norepinephrine and epinephrine in regards to smooth muscle activity:
- Neurally secreted norepinephrine acts on alpha adrenergic receptors in peripheral arteries to cause vasoconstriction
- Epinephrine secreted into plasma by adrenal medulla acts on beta adrenergic receptors in the heart and lungs to cause vasodilation
What two forces drive capillary exchange?
- Diffusion: concentration gradients across capillary wall
- Bulk flow: hydraulic gradients due to pressure differences across capillary wall
What is oncotic pressure?
Osmotic pressure due to the presence of colloids in a solution.
What is Starling’s hypothesis?
It says that the flow across a capillary wall is proportional to the difference in pressure across the wall. The pressure on each side is a compound pressure made up of hydrostatic and oncotic pressures.
With pitting edema, explain how pushing on a patient’s tissue causes edema to disappear:
By pushing on the tissue, you increase the tissue pressure, which forces fluid back into the veins. This is why compression stockings are recommended for people with edema.
What two things do cardiovascular homeostasis mechanisms preserve blood flow to above all others?
Brain and kidneys
In terms of improving cardiac function, which is more important to treat, preload (through diuresis) or afterload (through SBP reduction)?
Afterload. LV performance is afterload dependent but relatively preload independent.
In patients with CHF, what category of hemodynamic status is correlated with poor outcomes?
Both cold (low perfusion) types: cold and wet (volume overload but still low output) or cold and dry (volume depleted with low output).
True or false: In patients with CHF, both Digoxin and diuretics (with the exception of aldosterone inhibitors) are good for keeping patients out of the hospital but don’t reduce mortality.
True
Which classes of HF drugs reduce mortality?
- Beta blockers
- ACE’s/ARB’s
- Aldosterone inhibitors
- Combination Hydralazine and Isordil
Describe the use of beta blockers in CHF:
- Never use in cold & wet patients
- Only use in warm & dry patients
- In the long term, improves long term ventricular responsiveness to adrenergic stimulation
- Shields cardiac muscle from long term effects of norepinephrine
- Improves LV performance and reduces mortality
What sort of patient would combination Hydralazine and Isordil be good for in reducing mortality?
African Americans
Mesenteric ischemia:
Should be suspected in elderly, atherosclerotic patients complaining of frequent indigestion.
Amaurosis fugax:
Temporary blindness causes by thromboembolism in the carotid artery that ends up in the arterioles feeding the eye.
SSx of chronic arterial insufficiency:
- Intermittent claudication
- Sparse or absent distal leg hair
- Dependent rubor
- Distal ulceration
- Diminished or absent pulses
- Delayed capillary refill with thickened nails
- Cool extremities
Drug tx for arterial insufficiency:
- Aspirin or Clopridogrel as anti-platelet therapy
- Rheologic modifier such as Pentoxifylline to decrease viscosity and platelet adhesion
- Phosphodiesterase inhibitor such as Cilostasol to suppress platelet activation and increase vasodilation