Get The Facts of Atrial Fibrillation

Atrial fibrillation describes an irregular and often rapid heart rhythm. Atrial fibrillation is a disorder found in about 2.2 million Americans. Atrial fibrillation is the most common arrhythmia; risk increases with age, with 8% of people over 80 having Atrial Fibrillation. Read more Treatment for Atrial Fibrillation

To understand atrial fibrillation we must first understand how the heart functions. Picture two sets of chambers stacked one on top of the other – the upper pair of chambers, known as atria are larger and each feeds into a lower chamber below known as a ventricle which are smaller.

Causes of Atrial Fibrillation

The fact that you may have Atrial Fibrillation does not necessarily and automatically mean that you have a heart problem. In fact, a lot of young people experience atrial fibrillation without having had any history or present references to heart issues. Some of the causes of atrial fibrillation are as follows:

• Excessive thyroid or hyperthyroidism. Atrial fibrillation may be caused by the over-excessive amounts of the hormone called thyroid in the body.
• Holiday heart. A holiday heart refers to a susceptible heart that may experience atrial fibrillation when triggers stimulate it.
• Pulmonary embolism. A pulmonary embolism is also called a blood clot in the lung. It is a condition that results in the death of a certain part of the lung because blood can’t travel to and from it successfully.
• Pneumonia. Another cause of Atrial Fibrillation, pneumonia may cause the electrical impulses in the heart to get mixed up when the bacteria, virus, fungi or parasites that caused the inflammation of the lung reaches the heart.

Treatment may not be necessary where the symptoms are mild and the patient is not experiencing loss of quality of life. Where medical intervention is required, the condition can be effectively managed by medication or catheters may be used to regulate the operation of the heart. In some instances, this fails or the medication produces symptoms which affect the patient or the patient has a history and risk factor profile which warrants heart surgery.