Patient was educated regarding normal functioning of pulmonary valve as follows:
- Pulmonary valve is the valve on the right side of heart, between right ventricle and the pulmonary arteries.
- Pulmonary valve opens when the right ventricle contracts, allowing deoxygenated/venous blood from the right ventricle to be pumped into the pulmonary arteries.
- This deoxygenated/venous blood in the pulmonary arteries gets distributed to the lungs and pulmonary capillaries, where it picks up oxygen and becomes oxygenated. The oxygenated blood enters the left side of heart and from the left ventricle gets pumped to all the vital organs of the body through the aorta.
- Pulmonary valve closes when the right ventricle relaxes and gets filled with blood from right atrium.
- Complete closure of pulmonary valve prevents any back flow of blood from the pulmonary arteries into right ventricle.
- Thus, a normally functioning pulmonary valve acts as a gateway, permitting only one-way flow of deoxygenated/venous blood, from the right ventricle into the pulmonary arteries, but not in the reverse direction.
