Patient/caregiver was educated on pathophysiology of congestive heart failure as follows:
- Effectively contracting and optimally functioning heart muscle is needed to pump blood from one chamber in the heart to the next in orderly fashion, pump blood into the lungs for oxygen pick-up, and pump oxygen rich blood to the vital organs and tissues in the body.
- Congestive heart failure is an abnormal condition of the heart, in which the heart muscle is damaged.
- The signs and symptoms could slightly vary depending on the severity of damage and the chambers affected.
- When the heart muscle is in failure and not functioning optimally, blood backs up and accumulates in the heart chambers, lungs, peripheral veins, and tissues.
- Progressive back-up of blood in the heart chambers can increase the pressure within the affected heart chambers, thus compromising their function further.
- Progressive back-up of blood into the lungs can result in symptoms such as, increased pressure in pulmonary blood vessels, pulmonary hypertension, fluid retention in the chest, pulmonary edema, difficulty in gas exchange in the lungs, poor oxygen pick-up in the lungs, exacerbation of shortness of breath, and compromised endurance
- Progressive back-up of blood into the veins and tissues can result in symptoms such as, fluid retention in the abdomen with bloating, fluid retention in the extremities with edema, and acute weight gain.
- Overall, damaged heart muscle cannot contract effectively, contributing to poor contractions and inadequate pumping activity of the involved heart chambers.
- If this situation is not controlled and the damage continues further, ineffective and poor contractions of heart with backing-up of blood result in inability of heart chambers to pump adequate blood to vital organs, such as, heart, brain, and kidneys.
- Inadequate blood supply to vital organs, in due course of time, contribute to progressively compromised vital organ function.
