The Symptoms of AIHF

Running head: ACUTE HEART FAILURE
ACUTE HEART FAILURE
Name of the University
Name of the Student
Author Note

1ACUTE HEART FAILURE

2ACUTE HEART FAILURE
Q1.
A diagnosis has been done on Mrs. Brown with acute exacerbation of heart failure
(AIHF). The symptoms of AIHF are initially caused by the pulmonary oedema due to an
increased filling pressure in the left ventricle (LV) (Copstead & Banasik, 2013). To meet the
metabolic demand of the body, the LV is responsible for pumping an sufficient amount of
oxygenated rich blood to the body. The LV becomes impaired to perform this activity, which
leads to increase the blood volume and blood pressure in the LV (Gallagher, 2012). This
situation results to the flowing of the blood forwarded into the body, which can cause the
increased blood in the LV to revert through the pulmonary veins and left atrium, resulting to an
increment in the capillary pressure (Craft & Gordon, 2015). The fluid more possibly becomes to
penetrate into the interstitial spaces and the lung’s alveoli from the capillary walls causing a lift
in the capillary hydrostatic pressure leading to pulmonary oedema, as a result of increase of the
pulmonary circulation hydrostatic pressure (Fenwick, 2015). The pulmonary gas exchange
function can be significantly impaired due to the increased fluid and in the alveoli and airway as
the interference of the gas exchange with the lung’s ventilation process. Hence, severe dyspnoea
would be experienced by Mrs. Browns. Due to the movement of the air that passes through the
alveolar flied, sounds of the crackles are heard from the patient having pulmonary oedema
(Fenwick, 2015). It is indicated from the oxygen saturation reading that Mrs. Brown is having
inadequate supply of blood in her body. The situation is resulted by the incapability of the lungs
for not effective oxygenation of the blood. Therefore, while leaving the pulmonary circulation,
the blood gets poorly oxygenated (Gallagher, 2012). The failing heart is responsible for not
delivering the adequate oxygenated blood to reach the tissue oxygen needs, resulting into the
hypoxia and reduced tissue perfusion, as stated by Fenwick (2015). AHF is connected with a