Cardiovascular and Cardiopulmonary Analysis
Different cardiovascular and Cardiopulmonary process can be used to explain the patient’s symptoms. From the case study, the patient presents various symptoms: weight gaining, history of peripheral edema, and abdominal swelling. The cardiovascular process that influences the patient’s symptom is congestive heart failure, which is also linked to peripheral edema. At some point, when the heart becomes weak to pump the blood for proper circulation, this might result to blood accumulating in front of the heart (Verhoeff & Mitchell, 2017). Due to this and increasing blood pressure in the veins, the blood may seep out into the surrounding tissues, causing the swelling of the abdomen and the legs, as shown by the patient.
Besides, congestive heart failure can also be an attributing factor for pulmonary edema (edema in the lungs), a cardiopulmonary process. Though this condition isn’t that common, it is life-threatening (Jearath, Vashisht, Rustagi, Raina & Sharma, 2016). This is caused when the heart’s left side is not that strong to pump back the blood that is flowing from the lungs, causing the lungs to be filled with fluid. Consequently, blood accumulates in the lung’s blood vessels, making fluid to seep out into the lung tissue. This process explains the cause of shallow breathing problems and shortness of breath by the patient. These creates the need for the patient to sleep on two pillows to get enough air. Apart from these, racial variables might also impact the physiological functioning of the patient. Due to a lack of proper care, African Americans are at a higher risk of cardiovascular and Cardiopulmonary complications (Bahrami, Kronmal, Bluemke, Olson, Shea, Liu & Lima, 2008).
Congestive heart failure often causes pulmonary edema. As the blood vessels’ pressure increases, fluid is pushed into the air spaces in the lungs. Through this, the normal movement of oxygen reduces due to the fluids. These two factors combine to cause shortness of breath. Similarly, an increase in fluid movement from intravascular to interstitial space might cause the intravascular volume to get depleted, which might result in renal sodium retention when the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone-vasopressin system gets activated (Dhondup & Qian, 2017). These processes might lead to kidney disorders, heart failure, liver failure, and even affecting mobility of the patient.
To sum up, these two processes, when they interact, they become life-threatening. Medical practitioners should know the symptoms and how to administer appropriate medication when a patient shows similar symptoms discussed. Besides, rational background and medical history can also provide a hint of the two pathophysiological processes and how to diagnose them.
References
Bahrami, H., Kronmal, R., Bluemke, D. A., Olson, J., Shea, S., Liu, K., … & Lima, J. A. (2008). Differences in the incidence of congestive heart failure by ethnicity: the multi-ethnic study of atherosclerosis. Archives of internal medicine, 168(19), 2138-2145.
Dhondup, T., & Qian, Q. (2017). Electrolyte and acid-base disorders in chronic kidney disease and end-stage kidney failure. Blood purification, 43(1-3), 179-188.
Jearath, V., Vashisht, R., Rustagi, V., Raina, S., & Sharma, R. (2016). Pioglitazone-induced congestive heart failure and pulmonary edema in a patient with preserved ejection fraction. Journal of pharmacology & pharmacotherapeutics, 7(1), 41.
Verhoeff, K., & Mitchell, J. R. (2017). Cardiopulmonary physiology: why the heart and lungs are inextricably linked. Advances in physiology education, 41(3), 348-353.
