Atrial Fibrillation Research Paper

Decent Essays
Hypertension
Pathology
Atrial fibrillation is a common dysrhythmia characterized by disorganized atrial activity without discrete atrial contractions. Extremely rapid impulses bombard the AV node, causing an irregular ventricular response. The heartbeat in atrial fibrillation can range from 100-175 beats per minute (Mayo Clinic, 2015). Atrial fibrillation may occur suddenly and recur, or it may become chronic. It is common in patients with heart failure (Burke, 2016). Risk factors for atrial fibrillation include: increased age, heart disease, hypertension, other chronic conditions, drinking alcohol and/or binge drinking, obesity, and having a family history of atrial fibrillation. Manifestations of atrial fibrillation include irregular pulses

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Ecg Case Study

    • 421 Words
    • 2 Pages

    1. What does the PR interval on the ECG represent? What is the normal value? The P-R interval is the interval between the beginning of electrical excitation of the atria and the beginning of excitation of the ventricles and its normal value is 0.12- 0.20 seconds.…

    • 421 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Patient Afib Case Study

    • 1191 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Patient Afib is a 58 year old, Caucasian, married male. The patient has been healthy most of his life with no significant health issues until the beginning of this year. One night, in April of 2016, patient Afib began to experience chest pain, shortness of breath, nausea, and vomiting prompting him to visit the emergency room. Subsequent tests revealed that patient Afib had symptomatic atrial fibrillation. Physicians in the ER stated that patient Afib probably had had atrial fibrillation for a while, but it had been exacerbated for an unknown reason.…

    • 1191 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    CC Mrs. Amazeen is an 86-year-old female here today for a followup. She would like to talk about her visit with Roger Epstein, MD, regarding her abnormal findings on CT of her liver. HPI The patient tells me that she was not exactly happy with her visit with Dr. Epstein.…

    • 868 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This type of hypertension has also been essential or idiopathic hypertension. Secondary hypertension is high BP secondary to a cause. These causes include narrowing of the renal artieries or renal artery stensois, renal disease hyperaldosteronism, medications, pregnancy, and coarctation of the aorta. The Joint National Committee on Prevention, Dectection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High BP of the National Institute of Health defines a BP of less than 120/80 mm Hg as normal, BP 120-139/80-89 mm…

    • 1370 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Physiologic Murmur

    • 1259 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Physiology What conditions contribute to turbulent blood flow or heart murmurs. Turbulent blood flow occurs as blood moves through narrowed or leaking valves producing a swooshing sound over the precordium and a high heart rate combine with narrowing, causing the heart to handle a larger amount of blood flow than normal; the basis is increased blood velocity, structural valve malfunction, or atypical chambers. Some pathological causes of heart murmurs are anemia, high blood pressure, overactive thyroid, pregnancy, and fever are forerunners to producing a number of heart defects. One must understand the location of the point of origin, type and severity, and the different methods of assessing turbulent blood flow to understand the physiology…

    • 1259 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Atrial Fibrillation One of the most common arrhythmias that clinicians will confront in practice is Atrial Fibrillation (AF). The incident of AF increases with age. Many patients with AF are asymptomatic and only diagnosed incidentally. Many others experience only non-specific symptoms such as palpitations, dyspnea, or chest pain. The following case study illustrates the clinical role of the advanced practice nurse in the assessment of a patient presenting with Atrial Fibrillation.…

    • 366 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Atrial Septal Defect

    • 719 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Atrial septal defect (ASD) is an abnormal communication between the atria (McCance, Huether, Brashers, & Rote, 2010, p. 1219). It is considered as the fourth most common congenital heart defect, comprising about 5% to 10% of all congenital cardiac defects. The causes of ASD remains unknown, but it was thought that genetics play a role. A person with no other heart defect, or a small defect (less than 5 millimeters) may remain asymptomatic, or manifest symptoms later in life ("MedlinePlus," 2014).…

    • 719 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Causes of heart murmurs Pathologic heart murmurs are caused by structural abnormalities of the heart. These include defective heart valves, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (enlarged heart muscle), holes or abnormal openings in the walls of the heart (septal defects), aortic aneurysm, or other congenital heart disease. This causes blood flow into the heart to be really slow and does not allow the affected person to live a long healthy life. Treatment of heart murmurs If a septal defect is causing the heart murmurs, corrective surgery may be required.…

    • 447 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    According to CDC Center of Disease Control nearly 70 million American adults are suffering from hypertension. According to mayo clinic staff Hypertension is condition where the force of the blood against the artery walls is high enough, which could cause health complications such as heart diseases. Blood pressure is measured by the amount of blood the heart pumps and the amount of resistance of blood flow in your arteries. The more blood the heart pumps and the narrower the arteries get, the higher the blood pressure. You could have hypertension without showing any symptoms for years, but there will be continuous damage to the blood vessels and heart.…

    • 1209 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Heart valve disease is when one or more of these valves cannot open and close properly, it forces the ventricles of the heart to work harder in order to pump blood. Blood pumping through the arteries at a higher pressure than normal (> 120/80 mm Hg) is termed as high blood pressure. This is a result of build up of cholesterol and other fatty substances in blood vessels, which narrows the blood vessels and as a consequence makes it more difficult for blood to flow through them Congestive heart failure is a chronic disease, which means that lifelong management of the disease is needed. Treatment depends on the severity and underlying cause of heart failure.…

    • 794 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Diagnostic Tests For Atrial Fibrillation The initial foundation of the diagnosis of AF depends on the thorough physical examination and an ECG interpretation. In the Nottingham (2010) report, he cited the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA), the Heart Failure Society of America (HFSA), and the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) diagnostic criteria for initial diagnosis of atrial fibrillation. This includes; a thorough history and physical examination to evaluate the nature of symptoms, characteristics, response to pharmacological agents, and precipitating factors; electrocardiogram to identify the rhythm, ventricular hypertrophy, F wave morphology, myocardial infarction, bundle branch block, presence…

    • 1837 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ecg Research Paper

    • 374 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Indications for recording an electrocardiogram There are numerous indications for recording an ECG however it is important to understand that the ECG can only directly measure time and voltage; all other information available must be derived or inferred. Research over a number of years has established characteristic patterns and measurements associated with a variety of disease states. However, the sensitivity and specificity of these measurements vary with different pathologies impacting on the ECG’s diagnostic value. In other words, the ECG is useful in some situations such as detecting the presence of a myocardial infarction whilst of limited value in others such as determining the ex- tent of non-viable myocardium. An ECG is indicated…

    • 374 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    What is the SCA? What Can Cause your heart to stop beating? We hear a lot about heart disease and its causes that considered from our wrong daily habits. Most of them can be treated and coexist with, but there is a disease that affects the heart and makes it stop pumping blood through the body without any introductions or previous symptoms which would lead to the death of the injured person on the spot.…

    • 637 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    Hypertension Essay

    • 1673 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Hypertension also referred to as blood pressure, it 's the force pushing against the walls of arteries as it flows through them, (Medical Dictionary, 2016). When the heart beats to push out blood from the arteries blood pressure is at its highest. Hypertension sometimes called “Silent killer” because patients can live with the condition for years without any signs and symptoms. Systolic is the first blood pressure reading, it is when the heart is contracting while diastolic is the second blood pressure reading when the heart is relaxed. There are various stages of hypertension : Prehypertension ( with a systolic reading between 120-139 and a diastolic reading between 80-89) High blood pressure stage1 (with a systolic reading between 140-159 and a diastolic reading between 90-99).…

    • 1673 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Heart Murmur Essay

    • 1012 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Some of the common conditions that can lead up to a heart murmur are anemia, high blood pressure, overactive thyroid, and fevers. There are two types…

    • 1012 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays