Although a host of of diseases can affect the cardiovascular system the pathophysiologic pathways that result in a broken heart distill down to six principal machanisms:
Failure of the Pump:
In the most common situations the cardiac muscles contracts weakly and the Chambers cannot empty properly so called systolic dysfunction. in some cases the muscle cannot relax sufficiently to permit ventricular filling resulting in diastolic dysfunction.
Obstruction to Flow.
Lesions that prevent valve opening (e.g calcific aortic valve stenosis) or causes increase ventricular chamber pressures (e.g systematic hyperten-sion aortic coarctation) can overwork the myocar-dium which has to pump against the obstruction.
Regurgitation flow.
Valve lesions that allow backward follow the blood create conditions that add increased volume workload to the affected Chambers with each construction.
Shunted flow.
Defeats(congenital or acquire) that divert blood inappropriately from one chamber to another or from one vessel to another lead to pressure and volume overloads.
Disorders of cardiac conduction.
uncoordinated cardiac impulses or blocked conduction pathways can causeb arrhythmias that reduce contraction frequency or dimin-ish effective cardiac output.
Rupture of the heart or major vessel.
Loss of circulatory continuity (e.g gunshot wound through the thoracic aorta)leads to exsanguination hypotensive shock and death.
