Question

A 60-year-old woman with a history of obesity and Diabetes Mellitus Type II has experienced a myocardial infarction (heart attack) that caused permanent damage to the papillary muscle of the left ventricle, resulting in a failure of the mitral valve to close. Her blood pressure is 95 over 55, and her heart rate is 125 beats per minute. Her breathing is labored and you hear gurgling when you listen through a stethoscope. Her worried son asks you “What is a myocardial infarction, what do her symptoms mean, and what does mitral valve failure imply?” What are some upstream causes, and downstream causes? and what could cause the gurgling?

Answer 1

Myocardial infarction is also known as a heart attack. It occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to a part of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may travel into the shoulder, arm, back, neck or jaw.

Its symptoms include heart murmer, fatigue, shortness of breath, dizziness, irregular heartbeat, high blood pressure that affects the blood vessels in the lungs (pulmonary hypertension) etc. It can cause gurgling sound from the heart.

Mitral valve failure is a condition when the valve don't open or close properly, disrupting the blood flow through your heart to your body. It causes blood to leak backward to the left atrium (regurgitation), or the valve may be narrowed (stenosis).

Causes include congenital heart defect,rheumatic fever, problems with the mitral valve, mitral valve prolapse heart attack etc.