NUR 229 Lecture Notes - Lecture 30: Cardiac Output, Diastole, Aortic Stenosis
Document Summary
Stroke volume is the amount of blood pumped by a ventricle with each beat. Contractility is the strength of the heart"s cells to shorten or contract. Preload is the amount the ventricles stretch at the end of diastole. Diastole is the filling or relaxation phase of the heart. In other words, preload is the volume that has filled the ventricles at the end of the filling phase for the ventricles. Preload is also called the end-diastolic volume (edv). Preload can be manipulated to help with increasing stroke volume, which will help increase cardiac output. Iv fluids, sympathetic nervous system stimulation (leads to vasoconstriction this can occur naturally through the fight or flight response system or via medications called vasopressors) One situation would be when a patient is in hypovolemic shock. In hypovolemic shock, a patient"s fluid volume in the intravascular space is very low and this leaves the heart very little to pump.
