Atrial Fibrillation Paper

43 percent of alarm conditions indicated non-critical, and “generally non-actionable,” events; 38 percent of alarm conditions indicated premature ventricular complexes (PVCs), which, since a landmark 1988 Cardiac Arrhythmic Suppression Trial (CAST) study, are no longer treated; and 3.6 percent of alarm

On average a healthy adult during state of rest has a heart rate of 80 beats per minute, that’s 4,800 times per hour, 115,200 times per day, and over the course of a year about 42,048,000 times. Each beat has the important job of pumping blood and keeping you alive. Every so often the extraordinary complexity of the human body has its flaws, for some heart rates are not always steady but rather rapid with erratic electrical pulses. An example of a dangerous flaw that could occur within the human body is Ventricular Fibrillation. Ventricular Fibrillation is the name given to the condition when the pumping chambers in your heart quiver uselessly instead of pumping blood which causes cardiac arrest.

Atrial fibrillation is a common disorder associated with significant morbidity, mortality, and economic costs. Radio-frequency catheter ablation (RFCA) of the distal pulmonary veins and posterior left atrium is increasingly being used by cardiac interventional electrophysiologists to treat patients with atrial fibrillation. The success of RFCA is highly dependent on a preprocedural understanding of the complex three-dimensional (3D) anatomy of the distal pulmonary veins and posterior left atrium. Neither fluoroscopy nor echocardiography can adequately depict this anatomy.

Cardiovascular arrhythmias are common among both males and females and over a wide age range. As a former cardiac nurse, I know firsthand how often people develop new and reoccurring irregular rhythms. These patients would be ordered a cardiac monitoring device, such as the ones that were mentioned above. However, without access to advanced technology systems such as ZywiePro, there is a risk for adverse outcomes for both the providers and the patients. For example, the patient with a standard telemetry monitoring system would have to turn in the device, wait for the results to be read, and then return to the office to discuss the results and management options. This becomes time consuming, costly, and inconvenient to both the provider and the patient. In addition, it delays treatment. I believe with the evolving healthcare demands and increasing shortage of providers, we need to take advantage of the technology that has been designed to meet our healthcare needs. ZywiePro has been designed to do just that. It offers immediate diagnostic results that makes communicating and treating patients more

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the commonest arrhythmia. It is characterised by disorganised random electrical activity in the atria that results in a lack of effective atrial contraction. It is associate with a five-fold risk of stroke and a three-fold incidence of congestive heart failure, and overall higher mortality. There are many known risk factors for the development of acute AF including coronary artery disease (CAD), hypertension and valvular heart disease but AF may occur in the absence of any underlying cardiac or non-cardiac disease . As its incidence increases with age and with the ageing of western populations it is becoming ever more common in surgical patients.

The blood flow through the heart is a complex process that is sometimes disturbed. These disturbances can be a heart attack; heart disease; atrial fibrillation; arrhythmia, when the heart beats too fast; or bradycardia, when the heart beats too slow (“Who Needs a Pacemaker?”, 2012). When these disturbances occur, doctors usually turn to pacemakers in order to help manage the symptoms. According to the Nation Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, “a pacemaker is a small device that is placed in the chest or abdomen to help control abnormal heart rhythms (“What is a pacemaker?”, 2012).”

While catheter ablation to terminate ventricular tachycardia (VT) due to myocardial infarction (MI) has been shown to be a promising therapy, the technique’s 30\% failure rate in treating patients has prevented the widespread adoption of the procedure. Recent studies have speculated that the high failure rate could be due to the inadequacy of point-by-point endocardial mapping techniques to detect the complex 3D reentrant pathways arising from the infarct at a sufficiently high resolution. There is an urgent need for new methodologies that can accurately identify post-infarction reentrant sites thereby improving ablation targeting and the efficacy of the therapy.

As technology develops nothing can hold it back from intertwining with different aspects of life. One of those aspects is the heart. In the nineteenth century Wilson Greatbatch invented the first pacemaker with long life lithium batteries (“Pacemaker”). A pacemaker “uses electrical impulses to regulate the beating of the heart. They treat disorders making the heart’s rhythm too slow, fast or irregular” (“Pacemaker”). Since then technology has evolved the implantation of the pacemaker. Recently, Dr. Chris Ellis, director of clinical arrhythmia research at Vanderbilt University’s Heart and Vascular Institutue, implanted the Micra TPS, a pacemaker that is the size of a vitamin pill, into fifty nine year old Joseph Nelson. The Micra TPS is revolutionary

Artificial Cardiac Pacing (ACP) is an effective treatment for patients suffering from bradycardia. Atrio-ventricular block (AVB) is a common cause of bradycardia indicating the need for the implantation of a permanent pacemaker (PM). Roughly 3000 pacemaker devices are being implanted in Israel annually, more than half of them due to AVB block. A possible complication of this treatment for patients with AVB is the development of heart failure secondary to prolonged pacing via the right ventricle with a normal baseline heart function (Right Ventricular Pacing Induced Cardiomyopathy; RV-PICM).

In the US, heart attacks kill more people than any other single cause. Many of the deaths are caused by electrical disturbances in a damaged heart that cause it to fibrillate (Pool). Despite current overwhelming interest in the operations of the human heart, for most of history the human heart has been regarded as a "forbidden organ too delicate to tamper with" (NOVA). In fact, it might have remained so, were it not for World War II where military doctors, faced with massive numbers of injuries ushered the world into our current medical trajectory.

On a yearly basis in the United States, Mostafa, EL-Haddad, Shenoy, and Tuliani (2012) stated that approximately 640,000 patients end up having coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) and between 5% and 40% of these patients end up developing atrial fibrillation (AFib). This can be prevented if precautionary measurements are taken. As an intensive care unit (ICU) nurse, I have witnessed an influx of patients who developed AFib following open heart surgery in the recent year and wanted to research the problem. Thus, my database project for early detection and implementing preventive measures to decrease the prevalence of AFib following open heart surgery. With the help of my clinical educator, I was able to conduct chart reviews. The results showed

This patient has experienced an inferior wall STEMI, which has led to post-infarction conduction abnormalities. It is important to focus on the anatomy of the coronary vessels, the corresponding walls they supply, and the corresponding conducting nodes supplied. Also, one must know what walls of the heart correspond to what leads on the ECG. Inferior wall corresponds to leads II, III, and AVF. The inferior wall is predominantly supplied with blood by the right coronary artery (RCA). Other important structures that are supported predominantly by the RCA include the right ventricle and the AV node. A third-degree (or complete) heart block is the most likely tracing one would expect to see in a patient with hemodynamic instability. Management at this point, as per ACLS guidelines, starts with an initial dose of 0.5 mg of atropine IV push, repeating every 3–-5 minutes for a maximum of 3 mg if necessary. If this is ineffective, then one then must consider transcutaneous pacing. This patient had an inferior MI status post PCI bare metal stent placement into the RCA. She then moves acutely into irregular bradycardia with hemodynamic instability. The most likely post-conduction abnormality that would fit this scenario would be a third-degree AV block, which warrants a pacemaker placement after stabilization per ACLS

A mild arrhythmia may require no treatment, though your doctor will want to monitor the condition periodically to make sure it doesn't worsen. When treatment is given, it is usually in the form of drugs, surgery, or one of many nonsurgical procedures. Medications include blood thinners (warfarin or heparin) to prevent clotting, along with beta blockers and calcium channel blockers. These latter two classes of medications are given to slow the patient's heart rhythm; they are often used to treat a-fib or v-fib.

Oral anticoagulants should only be prescribed to patients who suffer from supraventricular arrhythmias and heart failure. Also in patients showing signs of right-sided heart failure diuretics should be used to prevent fluid retention. The treatment of arrhythmias does not differ significantly –

However, the following revisions on parameter adjustments are recommended to improve the paper. All patients initially received 130-Hz, 91-µs pulse, and 4-mA (mA) current during the initial active