← Chapter 9
Medical-Surgical Nursing · Chapter 9

The Valve Mechanism Engine

There are only two things a valve can do wrong. Stenosis will not open, so pressure builds and the chamber behind it hypertrophies. Regurgitation will not close, so volume leaks backward and the receiving chamber dilates. Pick a lesion and watch the diagram load the right chamber and congest the right compartment — then add a stressor and see which ones drop cardiac output off a cliff.
Choose the lesion
Now stress the patient
The sentence that replaces four memorised lists
Stenosis causes pressure overload and hypertrophy; regurgitation causes volume overload and dilation. Then work out where the blood backs up and you have the symptoms. Mitral problems back up into the left atrium and the lungs. Aortic problems show inadequate forward flow first — exertional syncope, angina, fatigue. A dilated left atrium, whatever the cause, stretches and fibrillates.
After the surgery — which valve did they get?
Suspected infective endocarditis: tick everything that must happen before the first antibiotic dose
Not checked yet.