Congestive Heart Failure Educational Program for Nurses



Congestive Heart Failure Educational Program for Nurses

What is Congestive Heart failure?

Congestive heart failure is described as the inefficiency of the heart in pumping blood than normal. In congestive heart failure, the heart gets weakened and pumps the blood at a slower rate, due to which the pressure in the heart increases. As a result, the heart is unable to pump the required oxygen and the nutrients required by the body. In this case, the patient may be experience shortness of breath, poor tissue perfusion, liver congestion, congestion of vascular beds, and jugular vein distention. This happens when the muscle of the heart gets weak, or there is a defect in the heart which prevents the efficient and effective blood circulation.

When the heart is unable to pump blood normally, the kidneys receive less blood and filter out fewer impurities from the circulated blood into the urine. As the impurities or the fluids are left out they start build up in the lungs, in legs and around eyes creating fluid congestion. This congestion is life threatening and for this reason doctor call this as congestive heart failure.

List the causative factors associated with congestive heart failure.

There could be many causes that can be responsible for congestive, but some very common causes are chronic hypertension, myocardial infarction, and ischemic heart disease. Some other cause that can also lead to congestive heart failure includes, weakened heart muscle, acute MI, atherosclerosis, toxic exposure, damped heart valve, prolonged arrhythmias, infection, congenital heart disease, and pericardial disease.

It is often difficult to identify the cause of the heart failure. The cause that leads to congestive heart failure is not that important when compared to as what can be done to if the heart does not pump blood efficiently and effectively.

The signs and symptoms associated with congestive heart failure

The signs and symptoms of congestive heart failure may vary according to the organ system of the individual, and depending on the extent to which part of the body has compensated for heart muscle weakness.

The most common symptom that is quoted by numerous patients is fatigue, but it knows as the nonspecific symptom that can be caused by other conditions as well. The patient's ability to exercise decreases and the person may not be able to sense this change. As a result, the patient may have to change the routine of his activities to accommodate this limitation.

Secondly, as the body of the patient gets overloaded with the fluids from the malfunctioning of kidneys, swelling of legs, ankles or abdomen may be noticed. This is caused by the failure of the right side of the heart as the right side is responsible for pumping venous blood to lungs in order to acquire oxygen. Due to insufficient supply of the blood, fluids start building up in the gravity dependent areas. The most common cause of this is longstanding failure of the left heart, which may also lead to secondary failure of the right ...