Cardiac Arrhythmia or Cardiac Dysrhythmia

An arrhythmia (also known as dysrhythmia) is any disorder of the heart rate or heart rhythm, such as beating too fast (tachycardia), too slow (bradycardia), or irregularly .

Symptoms

Some arrhythmias are life-threatening medical emergencies that can result in cardiac arrest and sudden death. Others cause aggravating symptoms such as an abnormal awareness of heart beat, and may be merely annoying. Others may not be associated with any symptoms at all, but pre-dispose toward potentially life threatening stroke or embolus.

Some arrhythmias are very minor and can be passed off as normal. In fact, most people will sometimes feel their heart skip a beat, or give an occasional extra strong beat - neither of which is usually a cause for alarm.

The common symptoms are:
•  Fast or slow heart beat (palpitations )
•  Skipping beats - changes in the pattern of the pulse
•  Fainting
•  Light-headedness, dizziness
•  Chest pain
•  Shortness of breath
•  Paleness
•  Sweating
•  Some types of arrhythmia result in cardiac arrest, or sudden death.

Common Cardiac Arrhythmias

•  Supraventricular tachycardia - a fast heart rate that originates in the upper chambers of the heart (atria). The most common are atrial fibrillation or flutter, and atrioventricular nodal reentry tachycardia.
•  Ventricular tachycardia - a fast heart rate that originates in the lower chambers of the heart (ventricles).
•  Bradycardia - a slow heart rate due to problems with the sinoatrial (SA) node's pacemaker ability, or some interruption in conduction through the natural electrical pathways of the heart.

Diagnosis

Cardiac dysrhythmias are often first detected by simple but nonspecific means: auscultation of the heartbeat with a stethoscope, or feeling for peripheral pulses. These cannot usually diagnose specific dysrhythmias, but can give a general indication of the heart rate and whether it is regular or irregular. Not all the electrical impulses of the heart produce audible or palpable beats; in many cardiac arrhythmias, the premature or abnormal beats do not produce an effective pumping action and are experienced as "skipped" beats.

Medical assessment of the abnormality using an electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) is the best way to diagnose and assess the risk of any given arrhythmia. A Holter monitor is an EKG recorded over a 24-hour period, to detect dysrhythmias that may happen briefly and unpredictably throughout the day.

Prevention

•  Quit smoking
•  Eat a well-balanced diet low in fat
•  Lose weight if you are overweight
•  Control blood pressure, diabetes, and cholesterol levels
•  Exercise regularly
•  Try stress management techniques like yoga , meditation

Treatment

Some arrhythmias require no treatment at all. Others require immediate emergency treatment to avoid death.

Treatments include physical maneuvers, antiarrhythmic drugs, intravenous medications, other drugs, electrical "shock" therapy (defibrillation or cardioversion), electro or cryo cautery, or implanting a temporary pacemaker to interrupt the arrhythmia.

Supraventricular arrhythmias may be treated with anti-arrhythmic drugs. However, most supraventricular arrhythmias can be treated and cured with radiofrequency ablation, eliminating the need for lifelong drug therapy.

Increasingly, most ventricular tachycardias are treated with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD). As soon as arrhythmia begins, the ICD sends a shock to terminate it, or a burst of pacing activity to override it.

Bradycardias that cause symptoms can be treated by implanting a permanent pacemaker.


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