NCLEX Examination.
Practice Question # 757.
NCLEX Examination
Digoxin is used to treat heart failure because it boosts intracellular calcium at the cell membrane, enabling stronger heart contractions. Digoxin may also enhance the movement of calcium into the myocardial cells and stimulate the release or block the reuptake of norepinephrine at the adrenergic nerve terminal.
Digoxin acts on the central nervous system (CNS) to slow the heart rate, thus making it useful for treating supraventricular arrhythmias (an abnormal heart rhythm that originates above the bundle branches of the heart’s conduction system), such as atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter. It also increases the refractory period (the period when the cells of the conduction system can’t conduct an impulse).
