Addressing Disparities in Nurses’ Understanding of Congestive Heart Failure

Congestive heart failure (CHF) continues to affect millions of people a year and remains one of the leading causes of re-hospitalization in the US. Within the Central San Joaquin Valley (CSJV) the incidence of CHF remains significantly higher than the rest of California. In order to ensure appropriate patient care and outcomes registered nurses (RNs) must have a thorough and full understanding of the disease process and its associated symptomatology. This study aimed to find if the implementation of an interactive multimedia educational program focusing on all aspects of CHF could improve RNs education and understanding of CHF. It is crucial that RNs taking care of patients at the bedside are comfortable in both identifying and treating as well as performing patient education on CHF. The study aimed at finding if an interactive multimedia educational program focusing on the application of didactic material in an interactive case study could effectively improve RN understanding of CHF. If effective RNs caring for patients with CHF will be able to better provide patient care and education resulting in improved patient outcomes, self-care, and quality of life

Comparison of echocardiographic parameters in Fabry cardiomyopathy and light-chain cardiac amyloidosis

International audienceFabry cardiomyopathy (FC) and light-chain amyloid cardiomyopathy (AL) present with concentric left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy/remodeling and diastolic rather than systolic dysfunction. Direct comparisons are difficult due to rarity and confounded by variability of LV thickness

Comparison of routine contrast‑enhanced computed tomography with late gadolinium enhancement cardiac magnetic resonance imaging in the detection of myocardial pathology

Bacground: Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) represents the gold standard in noninvasive evaluation of myocardial tissue. However, some patients are unable to undergo cardiac MRI due to a variety of reasons. Aims: We sought to determine the diagnostic accuracy of routinely performed contrast‑enhanced computed tomography (CECT) compared with cardiac MRI in the evaluation of myocardial tissue. Methods: We retrospectively evaluated 96 consecutive patients (mean [SD] age, 51 [15] years; 41 women) who underwent both CECT and cardiac MRI within 30 days. All CECT scans that visualized the entire heart were analyzed, regardless of the indication for and protocol of the procedure. The presence of late gadolinium enhancement on cardiac MRI was compared with the finding of myocardial hypoattenuation on computed tomography scans. Results: With cardiac MRI as the gold standard, CECT revealed a per‑patient sensitivity of 66%, specificity of 89%, positive predictive value of 75%, negative predictive value of 84%, and accuracy of 81%. Per‑segment sensitivity was 54%; specificity, 98%; positive predictive value, 76%; negative predictive value, 94%; and accuracy, 92%. Conclusions: Our study suggests that routinely performed CECT has high specificity, but only moderate sensitivity, compared with cardiac MRI in the evaluation of myocardial tissue. This result supports the recommendation that all CECT scans that visualize the entire heart should be analyzed for myocardial tissue pathology