Right-Sided Heart Failure
Nurses can help patients understand their right-sided heart failure symptoms and the importance of seeking care when symptoms worsen. This course will delve into the specifics of this medical condition.
Course Details
Overivew
Right-sided heart failure (HF) doesn’t get the attention that left-sided HF receives, but it’s an important factor in HF symptom severity and mortality. Right-sided HF, which can cause or worsen pulmonary hypertension and left-sided HF, is defined as a structural or functional abnormality of the right heart circulatory system that impedes blood delivery to the pulmonary system or elevates venous pressures at rest or with exercise. Right ventricular dysfunction is the terminology used when a structural or functional abnormality that affects the right side of the heart is present, but patients are asymptomatic. Understanding right-sided HF pathophysiology, causes, and medical management can help nurses facilitate evidence-based care for their patients.
Key Learning Outcomes
- Describe physiologic changes associated with right-sided heart failure (HF).
- Discuss clinical findings of right-sided HF.
- Discuss management of right-sided HF.
Presented by:
Nancy M. Albert, PhD, CCNS, CHFN, CCRN, NE-BC, FAHA, FCCM, FHFSA, FAAN
Nancy M. Albert is associate chief nursing officer of research and innovation at the Zielony Nursing Institute at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, and a clinical nurse specialist at the Kaufman Center for Heart Failure Treatment and Recovery, Heart, Vascular and Thoracic Institute at the Cleveland Clinic.
