Lnursing

Hello, So I'm reading up about heart failure for my NCLEX exam. One of the goals of care is to increase cardiac output in order to increase perfusion to vital organs such as the kidneys. Another goal is to decrease preload (or venous return) because the heart of overfilled. To decrease preload, diuretics can be given. This is where I am confused. This might be a dumb question, but I feel like these two goals are contradictory. If one were to decrease preload via diuretics, wouldn't this decrease cardiac output as well and then decrease perfusion to the kidneys? Wouldn't this be counterintuitive? Clarification would be great! Thanks!

Hi! I am having trouble understanding the SNS regulation of blood pressure. So in response to low arterial pressure, the SNS becomes activated which causes the release of norepinephrine and epinephrine. Norepinephrine acts on the alpha receptors to cause systemic vasoconstriction, which increases SVR, which will lead to an increase in blood pressure. I am having trouble understanding epinephrine's action on the beta receptors. So with decreased arterial pressure, SNS is stimulated and epinephrine released; epinephrine stimulates the beta receptors which causes an increase in heart rate, speed of conduction and force of contraction, but also causes vasodilation. This is the part I am confused about. With vasodilation, wouldn't the BP decrease? Or is the vasodilation used to accommodate an increased heart rate and increased cardiac output to protect the blood pressure from becoming too high? Any help and clarification would be great! Thanks!

So I've done the Kaplan Sample Test 4 which is mostly Select All that Apply questions and did terribly -- 24%. In all the other question trainers and qbank, I've improved my scores from 40-50% and am now consistently getting 50-65s%. I've heard that people have gotten a lot of select all that apply questions on the exam and was wondering if this was true and how difficult you found them. Any info/advice would help and ease my nerves! Thanks