ATRIAL SEPTAL DEFECT - Research Paper Example

Therefore, the role of the interatrial septum is to prevent the mixing of arterial and venous blood. Thus, the occurrence of Atrial Septal Defect leads the mixing of oxygen rich blood with the venous oxygen deficient blood. The defection deprives the body of sufficient oxygen needed by the body cells. Etiology Mixing of oxygen deficient and oxygen rich blood reduces oxygen supply to the body cells. Moreover, the left chambers of the heart to experience higher pressure of blood than the right chambers.

This is because the heart needs to pump the blood from the left ventricle, over long distances in the body. The right ventricle blood only needs to reach the lungs, which does not require a lot of pressure. These circumstances lead to interatrial septum infection that subsequently leads to Atria Septal defect (Perloff, & Marelli, 2012). The infection accumulates a large amount of blood that flows from the left atrium to the right atrium that causes overload of blood volume within the right atrium and ventricle.

The continued flow blood to the right side of the heart enlarges that can cause serious precedence in the failure of the heart. These activities precipitate the increase of pressure within the left ventricle thereby increasing volumes of blood that moves to the right heart. These states of the heart subject it to Coronary artery disorders and hypertension that are the likely factors to interfere with the ventricle pressure and blood shunt between the atria (Perloff, & Marelli, 2012). Some of The Septal Defects include ostium secundium, which is the most prominent form of septal defects.

It often results from extremely slow development of septum secundium that causes the enlargement of foramen ovale especially with excessively absorption of septum primum. Other forms of Atrial Septal Defect include the sinus venosus that is described by the venous inflow of the inferior vena cava or the superior vena cava. Ostium primum atrial septal defect and single atrial septal defects are part of the defects that result from interatrial septal defects. Symptoms The common symptoms of Atrial Septal Defect include Short breaths due to even slight exercise, cerebrovascular accident, and congestive heart.

They are often identified from regular chest testing through x-rays. Physical examination may also help in identifying the systolic ejection murmur during heart auscultation. Splitting of the Second heart sound varies during respiration for the affected persons. For instance, the affected persons often have negative intrathoracic pressure that usually contributes to overload of blood in the right atrium. The affected persons usually exhibit fixed splitting of the second heart sound due to the equalization of the blood that returns to the heart after inspiration.

Transthoracic echocardiography also reveals that the blood flows from left to the right atrium. This is based on the color flow imaging (Perloff, & Marelli, 2012). The functions of ultrasound in facilitating the diagnosis and treatment of ASD Physical properties of ultrasound Ultrasound is a high frequency cyclic wave produced by the sound pressure that is slightly above human hearing limit. The only difference between ultrasound and the ear detectable or the normal sound is that the ultrasound is inaudible to the human ears.

The intensity limit of ultrasound in young adults is approximately at 20 KHz. However, such measurements slightly