Discussion
The term “heart muscle died” is associated with a clinical condition referred to myocardial infarction (MI) that simply means a heart attack. The process occurs due to the formation of a thrombus caused by plaque rupture in the coronary artery that leads to an acute reduction of blood supply causing an imbalance in oxygen supply and demand. The limit in oxygen supply and demand leads to a reduction in the volume of blood flowing into the myocardium, the muscle responsible for supplying blood to the heart (Zafari, 2017). Eventually, reduction in the blood flow to the myocardium causes an infraction, death of a living tissue, which explains the term “the dead muscle died.”
Reversible and nonreversible cell injury
A cell injury takes place when the body cell experiences more stress that it can accommodate, or adopt. The level of cell injury depends on many factors including the severity of the stress, the type of stress, and the type of cell. The main causes of cell injury are the presence of physical agents in the cell, oxygen deprivation, contamination with infectious agents, and introduction of drugs, immunologic reactions, and chemical agents into the cell. Cell injury takes two forms, reversible and nonreversible. The reversible cell injury is a process of impairing functions of the cell but does not result in cell death. The two common patterns of reversible cell injury are fatty change and cellular swelling. On the contrary, nonreversible cell injury causes total cell destruction/death. Nonreversible cell injury involves swelling of mitochondria, lysosomes, and the damage of plasma membrane that causes cell enzyme to leak. Enzyme leakage inhibits all enzymatic reactions of the cell causing it to die (Porth, & Porth, 2011).
Analysis of Mr. Smith’s cell injury
References
Porth, C., & Porth, C. (2011). Essentials of Pathophysiology: Concepts of altered health states.
Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Zafari, M. A. (2017, Jan 04). Myocardial Infarction. Medscape. Retrieved Feb. 03, 2017, from
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/155919-overview#a2
