How Does The Heart Work? - Part 2

: Admin : 2023-03-06

Discussing heart sounds

The size and intensity of heart sounds are important when listening. S1 and S2 are heard at different volume levels depending on where you are listening to your chest. The volume of S1 is primarily determined by the position of the heart valves as the ventricles contract. When retracting, the sound is very loud when the valve flaps are wide open.

Sound volume is also affected by blood pressure. It is this pressure that "bangs" the valve and produces the sound. The noise heard between S1 and S2 is called systolic noise, remembering that the interval between S1 and S2 corresponds to the systolic phase. The diastolic noise is then called the noise heard between S2 and S1, which corresponds to the diastolic phase of the cardiac cycle.

These two noises, systolic and diastolic, can be more precisely defined by describing in which phase they occur exactly. Noise can be described as Early systolic.

If you put a stethoscope over the chest, you’ll usually hear something that sounds like lub dub, lub dub, lub dub, which repeats over and over again, with each cardiac cycle, or heartbeat. In total, our heart has four valves- two atrioventricular valves, between the atria and the ventricles, which are the tricuspid valve, on the left side, and the mitral valve, on the left side, and two semilunar valves, between the ventricles and the large arteries coming off of them, which are the pulmonary valve, on the right side, and the aortic valve, on the left side. Usually with each heartbeat, some valves open to let blood in and others close to keep blood in the chamber. The sound of each valve closing is projected onto the chest wall.

The two normal heart sounds are S1 (corresponding to tricuspid and mitral valve occlusion) and S2 (corresponding to aortic and pulmonary artery occlusion). Between S1 and S2 there is a systolic when the ventricles contract and pump out blood, and between S2 and S1 of the next cardiac cycle there is a diastolic as blood fills the relaxed ventricles. S1 and S2 together form a "laboratory dub" of heart rate. Good. Now, in addition to S1 and S2, there are two "additional" sounds, S3 and S4, that are sometimes heard in the cardiac cycle. S3 and S4 are heard in different periods of diastole. When diastole begins immediately after S2, the atrioventricular valve opens and blood flows from the atrium to the ventricle.

When there is a lot of incoming blood, the ventricles fill quickly and waves of body fluid bounce off the walls of the ventricles, causing them to vibrate, producing a third heart sound, or S3. S3 sounds like "labdubta".

For trained athletes and pregnant women, this is completely normal and means the ventricles are coping with the extra blood volume. However, S3 can also be a sign of volume overload when too much volume enters the ventricle, such as in congestive heart failure. Now, at the end of diastole, just before S1, the atria contract to deliver the last blood to the ventricles. When the ventricles are stiff and cannot relax easily, the atria must contract very hard to pass blood, which produces a fourth heart sound, or S4. So S4 sounds like "talubdub". Often, this stiffness occurs because the muscles of the ventricles become enlarged or dilated to withstand high blood pressure in the aorta or pulmonary arteries. That said, S4 is usually a sign of pressure overload or severe hypertension. In addition to these additional heart sounds, there are also heart murmurs that occur as a result of turbulent or turbulent blood flow through the heart.

These noises are rated on a scale from 1 to 6 according to their magnitude, with 1 being the weakest possible noise, 3 being medium, and 6 being audible without a stethoscope on the chest.

Now, some children with perfectly healthy hearts have so-called "naive" heart murmurs. This simply comes from the fact that the walls of the heart are thin and vibrate with blood flow, which disappears as the child grows. The walls of the heart thicken.

Steel's murmur, for example, is very common in young children and is best heard at the lower-left edge of the sternum. However, other murmurs are not "innocent" and may indicate heart problems. So a systolic noise is something you hear between S1 and S2 like "lubhushdub". The aortic and pulmonary valves are normally open, while the mitral and tricuspid valves are closed.

The four main causes of systolic murmur are the failure of the aortic or pulmonary valve to fully open, called stenosis, or the failure of the mitral or tricuspid valve to close completely, known as regurgitation or failure.

Because the blood has to flow through a narrow opening in that first moment, we get increased turbulence, which creates a murmur.

Alright, now, in tricuspid or mitral valve regurgitation, these valves aren’t able to make a perfect seal, and that allows blood to leak back from the ventricles into the atria. Another thing that helps differentiate a tricuspid valve regurgitation from a mitral valve regurgitation murmur is the presence of the Carvallo’s sign.

So, Let’s hear what your heart says. Healthify yourself by having the best treatment.