Heart Disease Symptoms and Treatment

Any disease of the heart interferes with the heart's function of pumping blood through the body to nourish the tissues. There are many symptoms of heart disease. One is shortness of breath at rest or on slight exertion. This symptom is an indication that the heart is not pumping blood at a sufficient rate to meet the demands of the tissues for oxygen or to remove waste products such as carbon dioxide. Heart disease may be classified as congenital or acquired.

Congenital heart disease results from anomalies (defects) of the heart or circulatory system. Such defects are caused by developmental problems of the embryo during the first three months, the time when the heart and great vessels are formed. The aorta may narrow over part of its length a few inches beyond its beginning (coarctation of the aorta).

The persistence after birth of a large vessel joining the aorta and pulmonary artery (ductus arteriosus), which plays an important part in the fetal circulation, is a common congenital defect. Some defects result in poor physical development. Others cause cyanosis, or blueness of the skin, the outstanding symptom of so-called blue babies. The specific cause of congenital heart disease is still being researched. However, German measles in the first three months of pregnancy may result in congenital deformities in the offspring.

Acquired heard disease may be classified as rheumatic heart disease, arteriosclerosis heart disease, and heart disease secondary to disease elsewhere in the body.

Rheumatic heart disease is a consequence of acute rheumatic fever. This disease usually occurs in childhood or adolescence and results in inflammation of the whole heart. The heart valves tend to become scarred as they heal. They are further damaged by repeated acute attacks of rheumatic fever. The deformed valves interfere with the pumping action of the heart. By the use of antibiotics, repeated attacks of acute rheumatic fever can be prevented. By surgery many valvular deformities of rheumatic heart disease can be corrected.

Arteriosclerosis heart disease results from a degenerative process in the walls of the blood vessels supplying the heart. It is most common among men of middle age and older. Narrowing of the blood vessels interferes with the function of the heart muscle supplied by them. If a blood vessel to the hart is suddenly blocked by a clot, a heart attack results. If enough of the blood vessels are narrowed, heart failure results. If the supply of blood to the heart muscle is insufficient for heart action during exertion, the pain of angina pectoris occurs. The cause of arteriosclerosis is unknown. However, possible contributing factors are diet, way of life, and the presence of diabetes. Operations have been designed to increase the blood flow to the heart.

In heart disease secondary to other diseases the treatment depends on controlling the underlying disease and improving circulatory function.

An instrument used in the diagnosis of heart disease is the electrocardiograph. This instrument records the changes in electric potential displayed by muscular activity of the heart. The art of interpreting the record and diagnosing heart conditions therefrom is called electrocardiography.

About the middle of the 19th century it was established that the contraction and relaxation of the heart gave rise to a change of electrical potential within the human body. Thirty years later it was demonstrated that this change could be recorded on a galvanometer, an instrument for detecting an electric current. In 1903 Willem Einthoven, a Dutch physiologist, devised the first electrocardiograph, which used a camera to make a photographic record of the changes shown by a galvanometer.

Development of the vacuum-tube amplifier and of more rugged and accurate galvanometers of the oscillographic type made possible the construction of the amplifier type of electrocardiograph now most commonly used. The galvanometers employed are 10,000 times more sensitive than the galvanometer Einthoven used.

Sources:

Willem Einthoven: nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1924/einthoven-bio.html

Galvanometer: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangent_galvanometer

Heart Disease:

webmd.com/heart-disease/guide/heart-disease-symptoms-types
www.wrongdiagnosis.com/h/heart_disease/subtypes.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_disease
www.slrhc.org/services/cardiology/symptoms2.html