¶ … Congestive Cardiac Failure: Nursing Perspective Congestive heart failure is a congenital condition that affects millions of American's every year. Heart failure often manifests in a chronic condition for victims of the disease.

There are several nursing interventions important for control and maintenance of the condition. Congestive heart failure can result in serious complications including edema, respiratory disorders and can lead to premature death. Treating congestive heart failure appropriately is critical to a patient's outcome. Perhaps even more critical to a patient's outcome is patient education targeted at prevention and healthy living. Nursing management of the condition depends upon appropriate medical evaluation, medication administration, monitoring and patient education. These ideas are explored in greater detail below.

Congestive heart failure is often congenital in nature. Congestive heart failure usually manifests when the cardiac muscle is old and tired and stops circulating properly. This may result from damage to the heart; alternatively myocarditis and cardio myopathy may be present which might lead to congestive heart failure. Heart attacks that end up killing part of the heart tissue and this can also lead to congestive heart failure.

Congestive heart failure is basically a slow deterioration of the hearts ability to fully and effectively circulate oxygenated blood. Right sided heart failure differs from left sided; in right sided heart failure a patient experiences systemic back up, manifesting as pedal edema or swelling of the feet. Left sided heart failure tends to present with pulmonary edema, (fluid in lungs) and is more serious (Arocha & Patel, 1995). Left sided heart failure is also more common.

Respiratory dysfunction occurs as a result of left sided heart failure - as fluid builds up in the lungs it is pulled to the back, and if someone is lying flat, more lung surface is covered and the patient will have trouble lying. An appropriate nursing intervention will...

Digoxin is commonly prescribed to help the heart pump more strongly, and works well for individuals with systolic problems; however it would not work for a diastolic problem (Silver & Stevenson, 2000:10). Lasix also operates as a diuretic and may help patients with edema (Robinson, 1988:158).
If someone has CHF, and they have left sided heart failure which is causing pulmonary edema, Lasix will treat the symptom, but digoxin will treat the actual condition. Physicians often weight the condition of the patient and have to determine if administering digoxin might actually harm the patient b/c the heart is already fragile and it might cause extra effort because it causes the heart to contract harder.

There are medications that are going to treat the cause vs. The symptom, as a nurse it is important to recognize which drugs to which so they might anticipate how a course of medications might play out. They will know to look for complications secondary to overwork from digoxin, or might know to look for dehydration as a complication from administering Lasix. As a nurse, in individual should be watching input/output of an individual on Lasix, whereas a patient on dixogin might need to have more thorough monitoring of an ECG/EKG and vital sign changes.

Congestive heart failure often results in a domino effect, where edema initially presents as a result of cardiac failure, respiratory dysfunction results, and eventually total heart failure occurs.

Nursing interventions might also include supplemental oxygen, because when the fluid backs up into the lung fields it eliminates a…