Common Signs and Symptoms

What are the signs and symptoms that are most commonly found in patients with cardiac tamponade?

One study I researched followed 56 patients diagnosed with cardiac tamponade.  In the table below, I summarized the results of the most common physical findings.  Many of the patients had a few of these different findings, hence the percentages do not add up to 100%.  Furthermore, I left out the less common findings to give a more succinct impression of the typical cases.

Physical Finding	Percentage of patients
Respiratory rate > 20/min	80%
Heart rate > 100 beats/min	77%
Paradoxical pulse > 20 mmHg	77%
Systolic blood pressure > 100 mmHg	64%
Hepatomegaly	55%

Probably the most uncomfortable aspect of these would be experiencing your heart beat begin to race and your breathing increase.  Often, such as in heart attacks, people will describe a feeling of impending doom.  If a patient has a severe progressing tamponade however, they will enter cardiac arrest relatively quickly and CPR will need to be performed.  

References:

Guberman, B., Fowler, N., Engel, P., Gueron, M., & Allen, J. (1981). Cardiac tamponade in medical patients. Circulation, 64, 633-640. Retrieved February 6, 2015, from http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/64/3/633.full.pdf html