Florita Santos, a middle-aged woman, is admitted to the coronary care unit with a diagnosis of left ventricular failure resulting from a myocardial infarction. Her history indicates that she awoke in the middle of the night with severe chest pain. Her skin is pale and cold, and moist sounds are heard over the lower regions of both lungs. Explain how failure of the left ventricle can cause these signs and symptoms.

Video transcript

Hi, everybody. Our next problem says a blockage in the coronary arteries that supply blood to the heart muscle frequently results in myocardial infarction. Heart attack, it leads to the failure of a right ventricle. B, left ventricle C, right atrium or D left atrium. Well, most often a heart attack leads to the failure of choice B, the left ventricle, uh the decrease of the blood supply to the heart muscle impairs the heart pumping and then leads to complications. Most often failure of the left ventricle. We should remember that left ventricle is what pumps the blood out into the body. Uh in its second phase of contraction, it's ejecting blood out into the body. And so it pumps blood at a higher pressure. It has a higher workload than the rest of the heart and thicker muscle. Those contractions uh have to work harder than the rest of the heart. And therefore, it is more susceptible to damage due to a decrease in the blood supply to the heart. As we recall, the atria fill just by pressure differential. Um and the pumping, they do pumps blood just into the ventri ventricles and right sided heart damage generally occurs as a result of damage to the left side of the heart rather than occurring just on its own. So usually damage to the right ventricle would be as a result of left sided damage. So AC and D are not a correct answer after a heart attack, it most of it often leads to the failure of choice. B the left ventricle. See you in the next video.