38508403
| Question | Answer |
| Aberrant Conduction | Conduction of the electrical impulse through the heart's conductive system in an abnormal fashion. |
| Absolute Refractory Period | The period of the cardiac cycle when stimulation will not produce any depolarization whatever. |
| Action Potential | The stimulation of myocardial cells, as evidenced by a change in the membrane electrical charge, that subsequently spreads across the myocardium. |
| Acute Arterial Occlusion | The sudden occlusion of arterial blood flow. |
| Acute Coronary Syndrom | A spectrum of coronary artery disease processes from myocardial ischemia and myocardial injury to myocardial infarction that includes the clinical entities of stable and unstable angina and acute myocardial infarction. |
| Acute Pulmonary Embolism | Blockage that occurs when a blood clot or other particle lodges in a pulmonary artery. |
| Afterload | The resistance against which the heart must pump. |
| Anastomosis | Communication between two or more vessels. |
| Aneurysm | Dilation of a blood vessel. |
| Angina Pectoris | Chest pain that results when the heart's oxygen requirements exceed oxygen supply available from blood. |
| Arrhythmia | Any deviation from the normal electrical rhythm of the heart. |
| Arteriosclerosis | A thickening, loss of elasticity, and hardening of the walls of the arteries from calcium deposits. |
| Artifacts | Deflection on the ECG produced by factors other than the heart's electrical activity. |
| Atherosclerosis | A progressive, degenerative disease of the midsize and large arteries. |
| Augmented Leads | Another term for unipolar limb leads, reflecting the fact that the ground lead is disconnected, which increases the amplitude of deflection on the ECG training. |
| Automaticity | Pacemaker cells' capability of self-depolarization. |
| Bipolar Leads | Electrocardiogram leads applied to the arms and legs that contain two electrodes of opposite (positive and negative) polarity; leads I, II, III also called limb leads. |
| Bradycardia | A heart rate less than 60bpm. |
| Bruits | The sound of turbulent blood flow through a vessel; usually associated with atherosclerotic disease. |
| Bundle Branch Block | A kind of interventricular heart block in which conduction through either the left or right bundle branch is blocked or delayed. |
| Bundle of Kent | An accessory AV conduction pathway that is thought to be responsible for the ECG findings of preexcitation syndrome. |
| Cardiac Arrest | The absence of ventricular contraction. |
| Cardiac Cycle | The period of time from the end of one cardiac contraction to the end of the next. |
| Cardiac Depolarization | A reversal of charges at a cell membrane so that the inside of the cell becomes positive in relation to the outside; the opposite of the cell's resting state in which the inside of the cell is negative in relation to the outside. |
| Cardiac Output | The amount of blood pumped by the heart in 1 minute. |
| Cardiac Tamponade | Accumulation of excess fluid inside the pericardium. |
| Cardiogenic Shock | The inability of the heart to meet the metabolic needs of the body, resulting in inadequate tissue perfusion. |
| Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) | Disease Affecting the heart, peripheral blood vessels, or both. |
| Chronotropy | Pertaining to heart rate. |
| Claudication | Severe pain in the calf muscle due to inadequate blood supply. It typically occurs with exertion and subsides with rest. |
| Compensatory Pause | The pause following an ectopic beat where the SA node is unaffected and the cadence of the heart is uninterrupted. |
| Conductivity | Ability of the cells to propagate the electrical impulse from one cell to another. |
| Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) | Condition in which the heart's reduced stroke volume causes an overload of fluid in the body's other tissues. |
| Contractility | Ability of muscle cells to contract, or shorten. |
| Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) | A type of CVD; the single largest killer of Americans. |
| Corrected QT (QTc) | The QT interval divided by the square root of the RR interval. |
| Coupling Interval | Distance between the preceding beat and the PVC. |
| Current of Injury | The flow of current between the pathologically depolarized area of myocardial injury and the normally depolarized areas of the myocardium. |
| Cystic Medical Necrosis | A death or degeneration of a part of an artery wall. |
| Deep Venous Thrombosis (DVT) | A blood clot in a vein. |
| Defibrillation | The process of passing an electrical current through a fibrillating heart to depolarize a critical mass of myocardial cells. This allows them to repolarize uniformly, resulting in an organized rhythm. |
| Diastole | The period of time when the myocardium is relaxed and cardiac filling and coronary perfusion occur. |
| Dissecting Aortic Aneurysm | Aneurysm caused when blood gets between and separates the layers of the aortic wall. |
| Downtime | Duration from beginning of the cardiac arrest until effective CPR is established. |
| Dromotropy | Pertaining to the speed of impulse transmission. |
| Ectopic Beat | Cardiac depolarization resulting from depolarization of ectopic focus. |
| Ectopic Focus | Nonpacemaker heart cell that automatically depolarizes; pl. ectopic foci. |
| Einthoven's Triangle | The triangle around the heart formed by the bipolar limb leads. |
| Ejection Fraction | Ratio of blood pumped from the ventricle to the amount remaining at the end of diastole. |
| Electrocardiogram | The graphic recording of the heart's electrical activity. It may be displayed either on paper or on an oscilloscope. Also abbreviated EKG. |
| Excitability | Ability of the cells to respond to an electrical stimulus. |
| Heart Failure | Clinical syndrome in which the heart's mechanical performance is compromised so that cardiac output cannot meet the body's need. |
| Hypertensive Emergency | An acute elevation of blood pressure that requires the blood pressure to be lowered within 1 hour; characterized by end-organ changes such as hypertensive encephalopathy, renal failure, or blindness. |
| Hypertensive Encephalopathy | A cerebral disorder or hypertension indicated by severe headache, nausea, vomiting, and altered mental status. Neurologic symptoms may include blindness, muscle twitches, inability to speak, weakness, and paralysis. |
| Hypertrophy | Stretching; enlargement without any additional cells. |
| Indeterminate Axis | A calculated axis of the heart's electrical energy from -90 to -180. (Indeterminate axis is often considered to be extreme right axis deviation.) |
| Induced Therapeutic Hypothermia (ITH) | The practice of cooling survivors of cardiac arrest in the immediate post-resuscitation period. |
| Inotropy | Pertaining to cardiac contractile force. |
| Intercalated Discs | Specialized bands of tissue inserted between myocardial cells that increase the rate in which the action potential is spread from cell to cell. |
| Interpolated Beat | A PVC that falls between two sinus beats without effectively interrupting this rhythm. |
| Left Axis Deviation | A calculated axis of the heart's electrical energy that equals or exceeds -30 (or in simplified formula, from 0 to -90). |
| Myocardial Infarction | Death and subsequent necrosis of the heart muscle caused by inadequate blood supply; also acute myocardial infarction. |
| Myocardial Injury | Injury to the myocardium (heart muscle), typically following myocardial ischemia that results from loss of blood and oxygen supply to the tissue. The injured myocardium tends to be partially or completely depolarized. |
| Myocardial Ischemia | Deprivation of oxygen and other nutrients to the myocardium (heart muscle), typically causing abnormalities in repolarization. |
| Noncompensatory Pause | Pause following an ectopic beat where the SA node is depolarized and the underlying cadence of the heart is interrupted. |
| non-ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) | "Subendocardial Infarction" |
| Normal Sinus Rhythm | The normal heart rhythm. |
| Peripheral Arterial Atherosclerotic Disease | A progressive degenerative disease of the midsize and large arteries. |
| Poiseuille's Law | A law of physiology stating that blood flow through a vessel is directly proportional to the radius of the vessel to the fourth power. |
| Precordial (chest) leads | Electrocardiogram leads applied to the chest in a pattern that permits a view of horizontal plane of the heart; leads V1-V6. |
| Preload | The pressure within the ventricles at the end of diastole; commonly called the end-diastolic volume. |
| Prinzmetal's Angina | Variant of angina pectoris caused by vasospasm of the coronary arteries, not blockage per se; also called vasospastic angina or atypical angina. |
| prolonged QT interval | QT interval greater than 0.44 sec. |
| Pulmonary Embolism | Blood clot in one of the pulmonary arteries. |
| QRS Axis | Reduction of all the heart's electrical forces to a single vector represented by an arrow moving in a single plane. |
| QT Interval | Period from the beginning of the QRS to the end of the T wave. |
| Reciprocal | A mirror image seen typically on the opposite wall of the injured area. |
| Refractory Period | The period of time when myocardial cells have not yet completely repolarized and cannot be stimulated again. |
| Relative Refractory Period | The period of the cardiac cycle when a sufficiently strong stimulus may produce depolarization. |
| Resting Potential | The normal electrical state of cardiac cells. |
| Resuscitation | Provision of efforts to return of spontaneous pulse and breathing. |
| Return of Spontaneous Circulation (ROSC) | Resuscitation results in the patient's having a spontaneous pulse. |
| Rhythm Strip | Electrocardiogram printout. |
| Right Axis Deviation | A calculated axis of the heart's electrical energy that equals or exceeds +105 (or in a simplified formula, from +90 to +180). |
| Starlings Law of the Heart | Law of physiology stating that the more the myocardium is stretched, up to a certain amount, the more forceful the subsequent contraction will be. |
| Stroke Volume | The amount of blood ejected by the heart in one cardiac contraction. |
| ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) | "transmural infarction" |
| Subendocardial Infarction | Myocardial Infarction that affects only the deeper levels of the myocardium; also called non-Q wave infarction because it typically does not result in a significant Q wave in the affected lead. Commonly referred to as NSTEMI. |
| Sudden Death | Death within 1 hour after the onset of symptoms. |
| Survival | When a patient is resuscitated and survives to be discharged from the hospital. |
| Synchronized Cardioversion | The passage of an electric current through the heart during a specific part of the cardiac cycle to terminate certain kinds of dysrhythmias. |
| Syncytium | Group of cardiac muscle cells that physiologically function as a unit. |
| Systole | The period of the cardiac cycle when the myocardium is contracting. |
| Total Downtime | Duration from beginning of the arrest until the patient's delivery to the emergency department. |
| Transmural Infarction | Myocardial infarction that affects the full thickness of the myocardium and almost always results in a pathological Q wave in the affected leads. STEMI. |
| Unipolar Leads | Electrocardiogram leads applied to the arms and legs, consisting of one polarized (positive) electrode and a nonpolarized reference point that is created by the ECG machine combining two additional electrodes; also called augmented limb leads; leads aVR, aVL, and aVF. |
| Varicose Veins | Dilated superficial veins, usually in the lower extremity. |
| Vasculitis | Inflammation of blood vessels. |
| Vector | A force that has both magnitude and direction. |
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