Coronary Artery Disease Practice Test

Here's another example about Coronary Artery Diseases. CAD has been a favorite topic when it comes to nursing exams. Maybe because CAD is the number 1 cause of death in the United States.

When you start working in the hospital, you'll find out that you'll be dealing with a lot of patients who have had CAD or some other disease related to Coronary artery diseases.

As a nurse, it's important to recognize and assess patients with CAD because they can be life threatening and it can only be a matter of minutes before it progresses to a fatal condition.

Today's question can be quite tricky and a lot of students can choose the wrong answer if they don't have enough exposure to the disease.

Here it is

Question #2 

1. Which among these factors and incidences most commonly becomes Coronary Artery Disease?
a. Diabetes Mellitus
b. Myocardial Infarction
c. Kidney failure
d. Atherosclerosis

Answer #2

I hope you guessed the correct answer. It's D, atherosclerosis, or otherwise known as Arteriosclerotic vascular disease (ASVD).

To simply put it, it's the slow buildup of plaque caused by cholesterol of fatty deposits in the arterial wall. It then causes narrowing of the arteries and thus narrowing of blood flow to the heart's wall and muscle fibers.

Diabetes mellitus is not related to CAD but rather is related to the insulin levels of your body. Kidney failure might be a complication of CAD although they are related. Usually, CAD happens first, then kidney failure could be a result because of compensatory mechanisms exerted by the renal system. And lastly Myocardial infarction is the deadly complication of CAD. If left untreated, atherosclerosis can lead to cardiovascular diseases like myocardial infarction.

Test taking tips

Visualize which comes first. Think of it as a Tree. The seed comes first, then the truck, then the leaves, then the fruit.

In this case, build up of plaque (atherosclerosis) comes first and mycordial infarction (then death) would be last.