Nearly 3 million Americans reside with a coronary heart situation referred to as atrial fibrillation, in keeping with the American Heart Association. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that quantity might be as high as 12 million by the start of the subsequent decade.
September is National Atrial Fibrillation Awareness Month. But what’s atrial fibrillation and the way do you repair it?
Journalists: Broadcast-quality video (1:25) is within the downloads on the finish of this put up. Please courtesy: “Mayo Clinic News Network.” Read the script.
A traditional coronary heart rhythm ought to beat like a gradual drum. Atrial fibrillation is sort of a chaotic drumbeat.
“It’s a bum, bum-bum, bum-bum-bum, bum-bum- bum-bum-bum. So what you’re having is you’re having heartbeats that are going sooner or shorter — bum-bum — or longer — bum-bum-bum, bum. And what that’s doing is it’s altering the ability of your heart to fill and your heart to pump blood effectively,” says Dr. Christopher DeSimone, a Mayo Clinic heart specialist.
That can put sufferers at larger threat of blood clots, coronary heart failure and stroke.
“The heart is like a house. You have the upstairs, you have the downstairs, and you have electricity going on at the top of the heart. And it’s coordinated to beat and pump in a fashion so that blood gets to the rest of your body by going from the top, down through the middle of the heart, out to the bottom of the heart into the basement. The top chambers of the heart are where the problem lies for atrial fibrillation,” says Dr. DeSimone.
There are many causes, similar to high blood pressure, diabetes and even sleep apnea. Often sufferers are unaware they’ve atrial fibrillation.
“Sometimes they’ll describe to me that they feel fatigued. They’re more short of breath. They feel like they’re getting older. They feel like they haven’t been as active. But really what they’re feeling is not effective blood pumping,” says Dr. DeSimone.
Treatment is individualized for every affected person and will embrace treatment; administering {an electrical} shock to the center; or a process referred to as catheter ablation, which scars the center tissue that is creating the erratic alerts.
