Tachycardia atrial fibrillation

The heart needs to rely on a certain beating frequency to maintain a normal state to produce water and supply blood to the human body. When the heart beats too fast, people will clearly feel their arrhythmia. The disease of arrhythmia is also called atrial fibrillation in medicine. At the same time, there are many different types of atrial fibrillation depending on the different symptoms of the patient. The following will explain to readers in detail the knowledge of rapid atrial fibrillation.

Atrial fibrillation, also known as AF, is the most common type of heart rhythm disorder in adults. Generally, irregular impulses of the atria occur 350 to 600 times per minute, which will cause uncoordinated atrial fibrillation. Because the ventricles can only receive part of the impulses transmitted through the atrioventricular junction, the ventricular rate is 120-180 beats/minute and the rhythm is generally irregular. Atrial fibrillation is divided into paroxysmal and persistent types. Paroxysmal atrial fibrillation is also called tachycardia. Almost all atrial fibrillation occurs in patients with organic heart disease, among which coronary heart disease and hypertension are the most common.

Clinically, symptoms of atrial fibrillation include palpitations, chest tightness, and panic. If the ventricular rate is close to normal and there is no organic heart disease, for example, there will be no obvious symptoms. However, when it occurs in patients with organic heart disease, especially when the ventricular rate is fast and the heart function is poor. This will cause a significant decrease in cardiac output, and a significant reduction in blood supply to the coronary circulation and the brain, leading to symptoms such as acute heart failure, shock, and angina pectoris.

It usually occurs in patients with organic heart disease. In addition to coronary heart disease and hypertension, it can also be primary cardiomyopathy, chronic constrictive pericarditis and heart disease of other causes. Atrial fibrillation may also occur if the patient has undergone hypothermic anesthesia, chest and heart surgery, acute infection, or cerebrovascular accident. It is worth noting that a small number of cases also occur in patients with digitalis poisoning and when metastatic tumors invade the patient's heart.

Tachycardia atrial fibrillation is similar to atrial tachycardia, for example, there is an ectopic pacemaker in the atrium with abnormal automaticity, which repeatedly sends impulses at a high frequency. Furthermore, if the impulses are regular, it constitutes atrial flutter. If the impulses emitted are irregular, or if there are multiple ectopic pacemakers in the atrium active at the same time and competing with each other, atrial fibrillation will occur. The circular motion or multiple micro-reentry theory suggests that when the length of the atrial myocardial refractory period differs significantly due to physiological or pathological reasons, the impulse will be transmitted in the atrium. It can present as regular or irregular micro-circular reentry, thus causing atrial flutter and atrial fibrillation respectively.

At present, most scholars believe that neither of the two possibilities described above can independently and satisfactorily explain the complete mechanism of atrial fibrillation. The most likely reason is that there is one or several ectopic pacemakers in the atrium that generate impulses, and during the process of propagation in the atrium, multiple micro-reentries occur, leading to the occurrence of atrial fibrillation. Therefore, when tachycardia atrial fibrillation occurs, it is still very dangerous and must be discovered in time and treated early.