Cardiac Disorders



Understanding the Heart

Part I

• Introduction:

o Many athletes may have cardiovascular disorders; it is however the athletic trainers job to be able to distinguish between benign and potentially catastrophic conditions.

• Anatomy of the heart:

o The heart is made up of four separate chambers

▪ Two atria

▪ Two ventricles

o Blood from the right side of the heart flows to the lungs

o While blood from the left side of the heart flows to the rest of the body.

[pic]

o The heart is divided in half by the septum

o ***Blood is pumped into the right atrium of the heart from the veins via the inferior and superior vena cava.

▪ From the right atrium the oxygen deprived blood pumps through the tricuspid valve to the right ventricle.

▪ From the more powerful muscles surrounding the ventricles the blood is pumped to the lungs via the pulmonary artery

• *the pulmonary artery is the only artery in the body to carry O2 deprived blood.

▪ The blood passes through the tissues of the lungs and picks up O2 and returns to the heart via the pulmonary vein.

• *the only vein to carry O2 enriched blood

▪ The O2 enriched blood arrives in the left atrium and is pumped through the Mitral valve into the left ventricle

▪ The powerful muscle of the left ventricle pumps the blood out through the aortic valve into the aorta and into the rest of the body.

• How is this clinically important?

o A pulse can tell you much more than if a person is alive or dead.

▪ Factors to take note of when checking a pulse:

• Intensity

o Strong

o Weak

• Contour

o How much blood is moving through a certain artery

• Regularity

o Are the pulses arriving at regular intervals?

• And of course pulse Rate

o How many beats per minute (bpm)

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