The nurse is obtaining a health history from a 24-year-old patient with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HC). Which information obtained by the nurse is most important?
a. The patient has a history of a recent upper respiratory infection.
b. The patient has a family history of coronary artery disease (CAD).
c. The patient reports using cocaine a "couple of times" as a teenager.
d. The patient's 29-year-old brother died from a sudden cardiac arrest.
ANS: D
About half of all cases of HC have a genetic basis, and it is the most common cause of sudden cardiac death in otherwise healthy young people. The information about the patient's brother will be helpful in planning care (such as an automatic implantable cardioverter-defibrillator [AICD]) for the patient and in counseling other family members. The patient should be counseled against the use of stimulant drugs, but the limited past history indicates that the patient is not at current risk for cocaine use. Viral infections and CAD are risk factors for dilated cardiomyopathy, but not for HC.
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