The Dispersive Characteristics of the Left Ventricle Filling Wave

Left Ventricular Diastolic Dysfunction (LVDD) is impairment in the filling of the left ventricle (LV) and is presumed to affect all heart failure patients including over 50% of patients with a preserved ejection fraction. Despite drastic changes in LV filling dynamics between healthy and diseased ventricles, LVDD remains difficult to diagnose due to inherent compensatory mechanisms such as increased atrial pressure, heart rate, and LV contractility. The propagation velocity (V_P) of the filling wave entering the LV is a common parameter used to assess diastolic filling. Current methods of measuring V_P are not physically based and neglect much of the fluid motion entering the LV. In this work, we investigate the physics of the filling wave. We posit that it is governed by a dispersive behavior and we explore its clinical significance.