Systolic Heart Murmur Case Study

An alteration of cardiovascular function in children such as heart murmurs goes undetected in some cases. However, when a heart murmur is detected it must be determined if it’s a functional murmur or abnormal. A function murmur does not require treatment and is seen as normal in children. In fact, my brother-n-law died at the age sixteen due to an enlarged heart. Unfortunately, he lived most of his life playing sports which put additional stress on his heart. There were yearly physicals required to play sports; yet, a heart murmur went unnoticed on numerous occasions since he seemed to be a healthy individual. He had no previous health problems or complaints. One night he went to sleep and didn’t wake up. Sadly, the autopsy stated that the cause of death was an enlarged heart. “Acquired heart disease in children continues to present challenges to the practitioner. Although guidelines for diagnosing acquired diseases are available,
In the scenario the sixteen year male is diagnosed with a systolic heart murmur. “A systolic murmur is one that occurs when the heart muscle contracts. Systolic murmurs are graded by intensity (loudness) from one to six. A grade 1/6 is very faint, heard only with a special effort. A grade 6/6 is extremely loud. It's heard with a stethoscope slightly removed from the chest” American Heart Association (2015). A systolic heart murmur is diagnosed using multiple methods. First, I would use the auscultation method. Then, once a murmur is heart further tests would be performed such as chest x-ray, electrocardiogram, echocardiogram, or cardiac catheterization. The signs and symptoms of an abnormal heart murmur includes “skin that appears blue, especially on your fingertips and lips ,swelling or sudden weight gain, shortness of breath,