Right-sided heart failure happens when the right ventricle can't pump blood into the lungs, causing blood to back up into veins. Watch for peripheral edema, ascites, hepatomegaly, jugular venous distension, and weight gain. Understanding this backup mechanism helps you recognize the condition in patients.
Here's a key critical thinking point to know for right sided heart failure. So when the heart is injured on the right side it can't pump enough blood out to the lungs. So the right side of the heart is in charge of pumping blood to the lungs. And when it can't do that, if the heart isn't able to pump enough blood to the lungs, the blood is going to back up into the body. If it can't go forward into the lungs, it's going to back up into the body and that's when you're going to see the signs and symptoms of right sided heart failure. Things like shortness of breath, edema in the legs and feet, ascites or that swelling in the abdomen, enlarged liver, enlarged spleen, jugular venous distension or jvd. The patient could have weight gain, nausea and nocturia simply because of all that edema and the swelling in the rest of the body because the heart can't pump that blood forward in the system to the lungs so it backs up into the body.
