Final answer:
Heart murmurs are sounds indicating turbulent blood flow, often associated with valve insufficiencies, arterial occlusions, and cardiac enlargement. They are graded from 1 to 6 with 6 being very serious. During auscultation, breathing patterns can affect the detection of murmurs, and specialized tools like phonocardiograms can record these murmurs.
Step-by-step explanation:
Heart murmurs are indeed correlated with different cardiac problems. They are unusual sounds caused by turbulent blood flow through the heart, typically around damaged or insufficiently closed heart valves. Murmurs can originate from a number of conditions including valve insufficiencies, narrowing of arteries (occlusions), or pathological enlargement of the heart, known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
Murmurs are graded on a scale from 1 to 6 during a procedure called auscultation, where a clinician listens to the heart sounds using a stethoscope. A grade 1 murmur is the least detectable and generally considered to be the least serious, while a grade 6 murmur is extremely loud and often audible without a stethoscope, indicating more severe turbulence from a cardiac issue. Moreover, auscultation effectiveness is influenced by the respiratory cycle; inhalation increases blood flow into the right side of the heart, amplifying right-sided heart murmurs, while expiration restricts blood into the left side of the heart, amplifying left-sided heart murmurs.
Among valve disorders, mitral regurgitation is most common, but any malfunctioning valve can lead to disrupted blood flow and subsequent insufficiency, contributing to heart murmurs. Specialized diagnostic tools, such as electronic stethoscopes called phonocardiograms or auscultograms, can record both normal and abnormal heart sounds to help identify the presence and severity of a heart murmur.