Cardiovascular System - Heart Attack
From Case Studies for Understanding the Human Body
S. Braude, D. Goran, and S. Maxfield

Uncle Jake and Aunt Leah were playing golf last week. On the sixth hole, Jake told Leah that he was having unusual pain in his left arm and chest. All of a sudden he felt weak and complained that his shirt was much too tight. A dentist playing one hole behind them examined Jake and found he was short of breath, pale, and sweating. He called 911 on his cell phone and told Jake to lie down and wait for the ambulance. The paramedics rushed Jake to the hospital where he was evaluated by a cardiologist. The tests showed that he had four clogged arteries. He was scheduled for surgery the next day.

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When they become narrowed by fatty or mineralized deposits, their ability to do their job becomes much harder. This would allow less blood flow to the heart and eventually cause a myocardial infarction.

4. Aunt Leah knows the cardiologist because she was diagnosed with a heart murmur years ago. Her primary care physician caught it during a routine checkup. Instead of the normal lub-dub sound, she heard a sloshy wobble in place of the lub. What is responsible for the heart sounds? The opening/closing of the heart valves and contraction of the heart are responsible for the heart sounds and if the heart sounds are abnormal this tells you that there is something wrong with the blood flow.

Which of Aunt Leah’s valves might be leaking? Is that sloshy sound heart during atrial or ventricular systole? It is possible that Aunt Leah’s atrioventricular valves might be leaking since that is the cause for the lub sound in the heart. That sloshy sound is heard during ventricular systole. Is the dub sound heard during atrial or ventricle diastole? The dub sound is heard during ventricular diastole.

The cardiologist jokingly blamed Jake for Leah’s heart murmur because he tugs at her heart strings. What heart structures can be correlated to “heart strings?” Explain their functional significance. The heart structures that can be