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Radiation therapy studying for boards book
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Your doctor will diagnose CHD based on your medical and family histories, your risk factors, a physical exam, and the results from tests and procedures. The following tests may be done.
• Coronary angiography (angiogram) is a procedure that uses contrast dye and x-rays to look at the lumen of your arteries. It can show if there is plaque accumulation and the degree of narrowing. Doctors use this procedure to diagnose heart diseases after chest pain, sudden cardiac arrest or abnormal results from other heart tests such as an EKG or a stress test.
• Cardiac CT (computed tomography) scan is a painless imaging test using a large donut-shaped machine that uses x-rays to take detailed pictures of your heart and its blood vessels. Computers combine
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It can reveal signs of heart failure, as well as lung disorders and other causes of symptoms not related to heart disease.
• Echocardiography, or “echo”, is a painless ultrasound of the heart to create dynamic pictures of your heart to show the shape and size of your heart as well as how well your heart's chambers and valves are working.
• Electrocardiogram also known as “EKG” or “ECG” detects and records your heart's electrical activity, showing how fast your heart is beating and whether its rhythm is steady or irregular. Electrodes (patches that have sensors) are applied to the skin on your chest, arms, and legs with wires connecting the electrodes to a machine that records your heart's electrical activity.
• Stress testing is typically done on a treadmill and is used by doctors to measure heart activity during exercise. It can help diagnose CAD and check for other problems, including heart valve disease and heart failure. An EKG would be done along with blood measurement monitoring. . If you are unable to exercise, drugs would be given to make your heart work hard and beat fast. A radioactive drug will be administered and special cameras would be used to take picture of your
There are several different heart problems that show up as an abnormal EKG reading. For example, a heart block can occur when there is a delay in the signals coming from the SA node, AV node, or the Purkinje fibers. However, clinically the term heart block is used to refer to an AV block. This delays or completely stops communication between the atria and the ventricles. AV block is shown on the EKG as a delayed or prolonged PR interval. The P wave represents the activity in the atria, and the QRS complex represents ventricular activity. This is why the PR interval shows the signal delay from the AV node. There are three degrees of severity, and if the delay is greater than .2 seconds it is classified as first degree. Second degree is classified by several regularly spaced P waves before each QRS complex. Third degree can be shown by P waves that have no spacing relationship to the QRS complex. Another type of blockage is bundle branch block. This is caused by a blockage in the bundle of His, creating a delay in the electrical signals traveling down the bundle branches to reach the ventricles. This results in a slowed heart beat, or brachycardia. On an EKG reading this is shown as a prolonged QRS complex. A normal QRS is about .8-.12 seconds, and anything longer is considered bundle branch block. Another type of abnormal EKG reading is atrial fibrillation, when the atria contracts very quickly. On the EKG this is shown by no clear P waves, only many small fibrillating waves, and no PR interval to measure. This results in a rapid and irregular heartbeat. On the other hand, ventricular fibrillation is much more serious and can cause sudden death if not treated by electrical defibrillation.
Both tests are very useful for assessing the pulmonary and cardiac system health of the individual being examined. This involves examining the individual’s response to the test by assessing their BP, HR, oxygen intake abilities, and using this information to infer whether they have some type of internal impairment. This includes
In this lab, I took two recordings of my heart using an electrocardiogram. An electrocardiogram, EKG pg. 628 Y and pg. 688 D, is a recording of the heart's electrical impulses, action potentials, going through the heart. The different phases of the EKG are referred to as waves; the P wave, QRS Complex, and the T wave. These waves each signify the different things that are occurring in the heart. For example, the P wave occurs when the sinoatrial (SA) node, aka the pacemaker, fires an action potential. This causes the atria, which is currently full of blood, to depolarize and to contract, aka atrial systole. The signal travels from the SA node to the atrioventricular (AV) node during the P-Q segment of the EKG. The AV node purposefully delays
It determines how well your heart pumps with each beat by measuring the percentage of blood leaving your heart
A cardiac assessment: Listen to heart sounds listening for extra heart sounds, fast heartbeat, and monitor EKG looking for dysthymias. Assess vitals especially BP, BP should be kept low in heart failure patients to put less stress on the heart. Assess the patient for edema as a result of fluid retention. Listen for crackles in the lungs due to fluid built up. Watch I&O’s and weight the patient to assess for edema, ask about activity intolerance. Assess for changes in mental status, cool extremities, pale or cyanotic, fatigue, and JVD (Indications of poor perfusion) (Ignatavicius &Workman, p.756).
In this article, it tells how an EKG scan is on grid paper and each small block, which is one millimeter (mm) long, represents 0.04 seconds and each larger box, which is five millimeters long, represents 0.2 seconds. On a EKG scan, the voltage of the heart is measured in millivolts (mV) along the y-axis. On the scan grid, ten millimeters is equal to one millivolt. According to this source, in order to calculate the beats per minute (BPM), one divides the number of number of large boxes between each heart beat (QRS wave) in 300 small boxes. However, that used for a more consistent and steady heart rate. For a more varied and irregular rhythm, one has to count the number of QRS waves in six seconds and then multiply that number by ten. For an example, if there are eight QRS waves, then the estimated heart rate would be 80
During a physical examination, a specialist may hear a heart murmur which will prompt a referral to a pediatric cardiologist for an analysis. Diagnostic testing will vary by the child’s age, clinical condition, and institutional preferences. Such test may incorporate a chest X-ray, electrocardiogram, echocardiography and cardiac catheterization. A chest X-ray uses unseen X-ray beams to cr...
...ers. Numerous signs and symptoms occur with an aortic dissection, making it very difficult to diagnose. Chest x-ray and chest and abdomen CT angiograms are the two most common tests performed to confirm a diagnosis, with CT angiogram being the modality of choice. If the patient survives the initial onset of an aortic dissection long enough surgical repair may be done. Surgical repair is very risky and does not have a high success rate, however, if surgery proves to be successful a patient’s prognosis greatly increases after 30 days. Perhaps the next time one is faced with the familiar imagery of a man grasping his chest and collapsing due to “heart disease,” instead of assuming the man suffered from the usual heart attack, one will remember that there are countless conditions that heart disease encompasses, and that aortic dissection remains one of the most deadly.
than 9 square centimeters, was placed on the patient's chest at various angles. The transducer delivered ultrasound waves into the body and these
The study of cardio physiology was broken up into five distinct parts all centering on the cardiovascular system. The first lab was utilization of the electrocardiogram (ECG). This studied the electrical activities of the heart by placing electrodes on different parts of the skin. This results in a graph on calibrated paper of these activities. These graphs are useful in the diagnosis of heart disease and heart abnormalities. Alongside natural heart abnormalities are those induced by chemical substances. The electrocardiogram is useful in showing how these chemicals adjust the electrical impulses that it induces.
These heart tests are known as echocardiograms. For example, these evaluate different aspects of the heart, such as chamber size, valve function, and blood flow. One may even do tests such as Holter monitoring and stress testing. This job requires you to be responsible for recording medical history, preparing the patients, maintaining the equipment, and performing the procedures. After you perform the procedure on the patient, you must then discuss the results with the doctor. Strong communication skills are a key characteristic that a physician should always possess in this field of duty.
What signs and symptoms to look for in CHD? The most common type of symptom is angina. What is angina? According to heart.org, angina is chest pain or discomfort caused when y...
Stress means different things to different people and stress effects people in different ways. Some people think stress is something that happens to them such as an injury or a promotion and others think that stress is what happens to our mind, body and behaviors in response to an event. While stress does involve events and how one responds to them these are not the critical factors, but our thoughts about the situation in which we are involved are the critical factors. Essentially, stress exists whenever homeostasis is disturbed or cannot be maintained (Stress and the Social System Course Guide, 2013). Homeostasis refers to the body's ability to keep the internal chemical and physical environments constant. As your body begins to react to stress several changes occur. These changes include increased heart rate, blood pressure and secretion of stimulatory hormones. Ones body prepares itself in stressful situations to either stand ground and fight or to flee from the situation. Walter Cannon called this stressful reaction the fight-or-flight response (Greenberg, 2012).
A traditional echocardiogram uses sound waves to produce images of the heart. In this procedure, a radiologist uses a transducer (a transducer is an electrical device that converts a signal from one form of energy to another form of energy) to transmit and receive ultrasound waves, which are reflected when they reach the edge of two structures with different densities. The image produced by an echocardiogram shows the edges of heart structures, but it cannot measure the speed of blood flowing through the heart. Doppler techniques must be integrated to provide this additional information. In a Doppler echocardiogram, sound waves of a certain frequency are transmitted into the heart.
This is the hardest factor of the principal to test and monitor. It consists of monitoring the individual's heart rate. The harder a person exercises the higher the heart rate and the same with a low intensity exercise, the lower the heart rate. This determines how hard an exercise is for an individual and whether they should try something harder or easier. For example, long distance runners measure their heart rate to see how hard it is for them to run a certain distance.