Cardiovascular Anatomy
This thick middle layer of the heart rapidly conducts electrical impulses to enable the heart to contract.
What is the myocardium?
On an ECG tracing, this specific wave represents atrial depolarization.
What is the P wave?
This condition is defined by a heart rate of less than 60 beats per minute.
What is bradycardia?
This is transient, episodic chest discomfort resulting from myocardial ischemia that resolves with the use of palliative maneuvers like rest or medications.
What is stable angina?
This is the phase of cardiac arrest that represents the time interval beginning at the time of arrest and ending 3 to 4 minutes post-arrest.
What is the electrical phase?
This condition occurs when the left ventricle fails as a forward pump, causing blood to back up into the pulmonary circulation and leading to pulmonary edema.
What is left ventricular failure?
This term describes the dilation of a vessel resulting from atherosclerosis, commonly occurring in the aorta.
What is an aneurysm?
This innermost layer of the heart lines the heart’s chambers and is bathed in blood.
What is the endocardium?
On an ECG tracing, this complex is the visual representation of ventricular depolarization.
What is the QRS complex?
This condition is defined by a heart rate greater than 100 beats per minute.
What is tachycardia?
This is defined as angina at rest that lasts longer than 20 minutes, new-onset angina, or crescendo (increasing) angina.
What is unstable angina?
This term refers to the duration of time from the beginning of the cardiac arrest until CPR is established.
What is downtime?
This condition occurs when the right ventricle fails as a forward pump, resulting in systemic venous congestion and peripheral edema.
What is right ventricular failure?
This condition is defined by a severe elevation in blood pressure (greater than 180/120 mmHg) complicated by evidence of impending target organ dysfunction.
What is a hypertensive emergency?
This protective sac surrounds the heart and consists of both visceral and parietal layers separated by friction-reducing fluid.
What is the pericardium?
On an ECG tracing, this wave represents the repolarization of the ventricles.
What is the T wave?
This electrical block features an absence of conduction between the atria and ventricles, completely blocking impulses at or below the AV node.
What is a third-degree AV block (complete block)?
This condition occurs when irreversible injury and necrosis of the myocardium happens due to a lack of blood flow.
What is an acute myocardial infarction?
This mnemonic guides the sequence of basic life support during cardiac arrest, starting with chest compressions before airway and breathing.
What is CAB (circulation, airway, breathing)?
This is the most severe form of pump failure, presenting as shock that remains even after existing arrhythmias and hypovolemia have been corrected.
What is cardiogenic shock?
This condition is defined by a blood clot that forms in a deep vein, usually a leg, causing gradual pain, tenderness, and swelling.
What is Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT)?
This cardiac chamber pumps blood through the aortic valve to the aorta to feed oxygenated blood to the body.
What is the left ventricle?
This geometric concept forms the basis for placing bipolar limb leads I, II, and III.
What is Einthoven’s triangle?
This is a single ectopic impulse arising from an irritable focus in either ventricle that occurs earlier than the next expected beat.
What is a Premature Ventricular Contraction (PVC)?
This type of myocardial infarction is diagnosed by the presence of persistent ST-segment elevation or a new Left Bundle Branch Block (LBBB) on a 12-lead ECG.
What is a STEMI (ST segment elevation myocardial infarction)?
This process passes current through a fibrillating heart to depolarize cells and allow them to repolarize uniformly.
What is defibrillation?
This symptom describes a patient's need for more pillows to sleep comfortably, which indicates worsening heart failure.
What is orthopnea?
This life-threatening condition occurs when a blood clot, air, fat, or amniotic fluid lodges in the pulmonary artery, blocking blood flow
What is a pulmonary embolism?
These two superior chambers of the heart are responsible for receiving incoming blood.
What are the atria?
This measurement indicates the time an electrical impulse takes to travel from the atria to the ventricles.
What is the PR interval?
This chaotic ventricular rhythm lacks ventricular depolarization or contraction and usually results from advanced coronary artery disease.
What is Ventricular Fibrillation?
These are chemicals, such as troponin and creatine kinase, that are released into the blood by the heart when myocardial cells are damaged.
What are cardiac enzymes?
This phase of cardiac arrest features the failure of the sodium-potassium pump, where survival beyond 10 minutes is extremely limited.
What is the metabolic phase?
This noninvasive respiratory treatment is initiated at 5 cm H2O and requires placing a mask over the patient's mouth and nose to treat pulmonary edema.
What is CPAP?
This specific type of aneurysm is caused by changes in the smooth muscle and elastic tissue of the aortic media, resulting in a hematoma.
What is a dissecting aortic aneurysm?
These arteries originate in the aorta and supply oxygenated blood directly to the heart muscle.
What are the coronary arteries?
This isoelectric line on an ECG may be elevated or depressed in the presence of certain disease states like ischemia or infarction.
What is the ST segment?
This arrhythmia is a variant of sinus arrhythmia where there is a passive transfer of pacemaker sites from the sinus node to latent pacemaker sites in the atria and AV junction.
What is a wandering atrial pacemaker?
This disease process involves the progressive narrowing of the lumen of coronary arteries caused by the development of thick, hard plaques called atheromas.
What is atherosclerosis?
This term describes the event when resuscitation efforts successfully return a spontaneous pulse and breathing to a patient.
What is Return of Spontaneous Circulation (ROSC)?
Left heart failure can be classified into these two types: one where the heart cannot pump, and one where the heart cannot fill.
What are systolic and diastolic failure?
During palpation of the epigastrium, feeling this specific sensation could indicate an abdominal aortic aneurysm.
What are pulsations?
This fan-like electrical structure leads to the Purkinje cells and is very difficult to block because it is widely distributed rather than being a single strand.
What is the Left Posterior Fascicle?
This wave can sometimes indicate electrolyte abnormalities, but can also be a normal finding on an ECG.
What is the U wave?
This type of block delays conduction at the level of the AV node but is not an actual block, but rather a condition superimposed on another rhythm.
What is a First-degree AV block?
This mnemonic is used by paramedics to assess a patient's history of chest pain, including its onset, provocation, and radiation.
What is OPQRST?
During post-cardiac arrest care, this is the ideal target range for a patient's systolic blood pressure.
What is 80–100 mmHg?
This symptom of heart failure occurs when a patient wakes up with severe shortness of breath at night.
What is paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea (PND)?
This specific hypertensive condition in pregnancy is characterized by generalized edema, blurred vision, and the presence of seizures.
What is eclampsia?