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The Heart Of Heart Failure

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Research by the American Heart Association (2014) states that heart failure effects an estimated 5.1 million Americans and it is predicted to increase 25% by 2030. Heart failure is a pathophysiological condition that indicates the heart is unable to promote enough cardiac output causing insufficient blood supply to the body. Pharmacological treatment for cardiac failure is dependent upon the ability to decrease rate of blood flow and blood pressure. Survival after heart failure diagnosis has improved with medication but the death rate remains high with over half of the people diagnosed with heart failure will die within 5 years. (Go et al., 2014) Every beat you feel you heart make is one complete cycle of blood entering the heart and exiting the heart. The heart cycle breaks down into two main contractions. Atrial contraction of the heart forces blood from the vena cava and the pulmonary veins through the atrioventricular valves and into the left and right ventricles. During ventricular contraction the tricuspid and mitral valves close and the blood is forced out of the ventricles through the semilunar valves into the aortic and pulmonic arteries. The pulmonic arteries supply blood to the lungs for oxygenation while the aortic arteries circulate the already oxygenated blood from the lungs, to the rest of the body. Diastole is the period of relaxation when the blood fills the ventricles. Systole is the period of contraction that forces the blood out of the ventricles.

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