Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis, Prognosis And Latest Treatment For Atrial Fibrillation

If you have heart beat that is quicker than 60-80 beats per minute at rest or 90-115 beats per minutes during exercise, you might have fast and irregular heart beat or arrhythmia.    There are different kinds of arrhythmia but atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common type

Causes

AF occurs when more than one cardiac cell in the upper chamber (atrial) of your heart are beating.  This usually occurs in patients who have pre-existing cardiovascular diseases (secondary AF) such as coronary artery disease, cardiac surgery, hypertension, myocardial infarction, valve disorders (e.g. mitral valve disease) and congestive heart failure.  The changes in cardiac structure associated with these diseases have damaged the conduction pathway of the cardiac muscle, making AF more prone to happen.

There are, however, some instances where there is no evidence of underlying disease and AF occurs spontaneously.  These are termed "lone AF" and happened in approximately 20% of AF patients. 

Symptoms

Beside a quicker heart rate, patients with AF also experience palpitations, chest pain, dyspnea, fatigue or light-headedness.

Diagnosis and Prognosis

The only way to find out whether you have AF is by conducting an ECG test.  Patients who have arrhythmia will find their P wave absence and their R-R interval shorten in their ECG.

The good news about AF is that it is not life-threatening, but patients with long-term AF occurrence can lead to stroke and heart failure.  In fact, patients with AF have a double risk of death, a 5-fold increase in stroke and a 3-fold increase in heart failure compared with those who do not have AF.

Treatment

Depending on your clinical situation (whether you have hypertension, diabetes or stroke or heart failure), your doctor might prescribe warfarin (Coumadin) or aspirin to prevent stroke and prescribe anti-arrhythmic drugs to slow down your heart rate and convert your heart into rhythm again.  In certain situations where pharmacological therapy fails to convert the heart into rhythm, ablation might be considered.

Anticoagulant

When taking warfarin (Coumadin), it is important to keep your INR is between 2.0 and 3.0.  An INR that is lower than 2 indicated that you are not protected from stroke while an INR of greater than 3 means that you might have an increased chance of bleeding.