Pulmonary Edema

[rhan101277]

In reading about this, it said that as the heart weakens or is damaged it causes high pressure within the arteries/veins going to from the lungs. Does this happen because the blood is not moving as it should and it causes pressure buildup? It says the fluid moves out of the capillaries due to pressure and into the alveoli affecting gas exchange.

I was thinking that their heart would have to be in some bad shape, for it to build up enough to cause this. Can a-fib and things like that cause this issue? Is there any other heart malfunction that anyone can thing of?

 

[JPINFV]

Increased venous pressure, increased lymph pressure, and increased osmotic pressure in the interstitial space will cause edema regardless of location. Increased arterial pressure does not cause edema. In regard to venous pressure and the location of edema depends on which side of the heart is suffering from a condition known as congestive heart failure (CHF).

In a normal patient, the left and right sides of the heart pumps, on average, the same volume of blood per contraction (the big difference is that the left side pumps at a much higher pressure than the right). In CHF, the heart is damaged and one side can't keep up with the other. Since blood is filling the heart faster than it can pump it out, the blood, among other things, begins to back up into the veins increasing venous pressure. Now if the patient is suffering from left side pulmonary edema, the blood is backing up into the pulmonary veins and the patient will present with pulmonary edema. If the patient is suffering from right sided heart failure, the patient will suffer from distal edema since the blood is backing up into the systemic venous system.