Congestive Heart Failure: Symptoms, Causes

CONGESTIVE HEART FAILURE 1
Reflection on Congestive Heart Failure Care Delivery
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

CONGESTIVE HEART FAILURE 2
Reflection on Congestive Heart Failure Care Delivery
Heart Failure is one of the most severe concern and epidemic globally, being one of
the biggest cause of mortality and high morbidity rates in all major countries across the
countries (Savarese & Lund, 2017). Congestive heart failure is a systemic disease which is
defined by the inability of the heart to deliver blood adequately to other organs and meet their
blood demand (Francis & Tang, 2019). This hampers the metabolic functionality of the end
organs as they are devoid of oxygenated blood. Heart failure is a severe health complication
issue and requires standard nursing interventions and quality of health care delivery service to
manage the condition.
Nurses have a critical role to play in addressing severe health complications such as
heart failure and improve the health outcomes of the patient. In my recent experience in
delivering care to a patient with congestive heart failure, I achieved a greater understanding
of the management of congestive and heart failure and what are the key nursing interventions.
The following sections of the paper will describe the key thoughts I had while addressing the
patient in the form of a pre-mind map and detailed information on few of the learning
outcomes I experienced, presented with the help of a post-mind map.
Discussion
The pre and post mind maps will help you to visualize my ideas and transition of
learning experience before and after attending a patient suffering from congestive heart
failure. In the scenario of heart failure, the heart is not capable of meeting the physiological
demands of the body due to decreased cardiac output. The pre mind presents all the idea
relevant to heart failure before the intervention of simulation learning. In the pre mind map,
the general definition of heart failure, its primary causes, relevant complications, primary
investigating methods to adjudge the severity of heart failure along and common treatment
procedures along with pathophysiology of heart failure is present.

CONGESTIVE HEART FAILURE 3
The post mind map presents my thoughts and knowledge acquired post the simulation
learning process for congestive heart failure. After the simulation process, I achieved a better
understanding of the condition of heart failure, its symptoms, the compensatory mechanism
in the body to cope up with heart failure, the management of heart failure condition by the
health care and nursing professionals, and the goals of drug therapy and treatment of heart
failure.
The pre mind map presents my previous understanding of heart failure and knowledge
on the causes of it, which includes hypertension, coronary artery disease, atrial fibrillation,
endocrine disorders, and infective endocarditis. Prior to attending the patient, I knew that few
of the complications related to heart failure are valve-dysfunctions, renal failure and stroke.
However, post attending the patient, who is being diagnosed for congestive heart failure and
is currently under the care of the multidisciplinary team, I acquired knowledge about several
compensatory mechanisms that the body undergoes to deal with the condition of onset of
heart failure. Four of the primary compensatory mechanism involved with congestive heart
failure are activation of the sympathetic nervous system for increased contractility and
tachycardia, renin-angiotensin system activation leading to vasoconstriction, increase in
stroke volume with increased preload in Frank-Starling mechanism and ventricular
remodelling and hypertrophy. Due to such compensatory mechanism, several different
physiological changes are observed which include, increased afterload, increase preload,
heart’s increased workload, increase heart rate and decreased contractility of the heart (Inami
et al., 2019).
The simulated learning experience of a patient suffering from heart failure help me
made a critical analysis of these compensatory mechanisms in the body to bring physiological
changes and address the onset of heart failure. However, one critical observation that I made
was that even though the compensatory mechanisms are efficient in maintaining the cardiac
output in the initial stages, there is a significant negative consequence of such compensatory