climax case study.docx - Table of Contents Case 2 2 Case 2...

Table of Contents
Case 2 2
Case 2 References 5
Case 5 6
Case 5 References 9
1

Case 2
A 35-year-old woman visits her GP, complaining of shortness of breath, fatigue and difficulty
sleeping. Her medical history is unremarkable except for a vague history of fever and joint
pain as a child. On examination she has a heart rate of 120 beats per minute and the rhythm
has no discernible pattern. Auscultation of the heart indicates a systolic murmur (during left
ventricular ejection of blood).
2. State the term used to describe rapid and uncoordinated muscular twitching of the atrial
wall. [1]
4. Briefly outline the major structures of the conducting system of the heart, including their
location, and the normal pathway of conduction. [6]
2

The heart contractions are independent of the nervous system hence it is considered
myogenic a factor that is crucial for it autorhythmic capacity to regularly contract at intervals
producing 75 beats per minute in a normal healthy resting adult (Saladin, Gan, & Cushman,
2017: Drake, Vogl, Mitchell, & Gray, 2010). The heart conduction system is composed of
nodes and networks of cardiac muscle cells that form the four basic heart conduction
components. Firstly, the Sino atrial node (pace maker) will initiate the conduction impulse
from from its location at the junction of the superior venacava and right atria at the superior
end of the crista terminalis (Saladin, Gan, & Cushman, 2017: Drake, Vogl, Mitchell, & Gray,
2010). Its excitation signals will spread to the left atria causing the atrial muscles to contract.