Organic cardiac disease: the pathological heart, most caused by the mitral stenosis of rheumatic heart disease, contributes 61% to 70% of AF.
Coronary heart disease: the well-developed medical industry has curbed the annual growth of rheumatic heart diseases. However, modern social life has brought about an increasing number of patients with coronary heart disease, which will become the first cause of atrial fibrillation.
Other diseases: hypertensive heart disease, cardiomyopathy, hyperthyroidism, pericarditis, myocarditis, acute pulmonary embolism, digitalis poisoning, and acute infection.
Patients with healthy hearts may often suffer from transient atrial fibrillation caused by many risk factors, like severe emotional fluctuations, fatigue, infection, alcoholism, hypoxia, emesis, cough, cryosurgery, hypokalemia, hypoglycemia, and the side effects of some drugs.
Palpitation, heavy, disordered, rapid heartbeat, fatigue, and impotence.
Shortness of breath, dyspnea in mild physical work or at rest.
Discomfort, pain, or tightness in the chest.
Dizziness, lightheadedness, or fainting.
Feeling dry and hot and sweating.
Nausea and vomiting.
Severe pain in the neck.
Some patients still need to pay close attention to the high risks of atrial fibrillation, even though they may not show any of these symptoms.
Atrial fibrillation (AF), the most common type of tachyarrhythmia, has a significantly rising incidence rate relating to the patient's age. Statistically, the incidence is about 0.61% in the general population. Therefore, it is calculated that there are at least 8 million patients with AF in China, having become an increasingly serious public health concern.
During an AF, the heart beats out of rhythm and becomes rapidly and disordered, and the cardiac muscles have no effective contractions. Thus, the blood cannot be "pumped" out of the heart properly, and clots there. These tiny blood clots flow to the brain or other body parts, resulting in stroke and even death. During this process, the cardiac muscles gradually become necrotic after the loss of regular movement, which may also cause heart failure and even death.
AF increases the risk of stroke by five times and the mortality rate by two times.
ECG examination.
Holter monitoring: atrial fibrillation can be detected timely with a continuous recording of heartbeats for 24 to 48 hours through Holter monitoring.
Implantable cardiac monitor (ICM): Long-term monitoring of ECG for 1-3 years to timely record the heart rhythm after the onset of symptoms and diagnose whether it is atrial fibrillation.
Drug therapy: anticoagulant drugs, cardiac rhythm suppressive drugs, and ventricular rate suppressive drugs.
Surgery: radiofrequency ablation, surgical maze procedure.
Atrial fibrillation occurs with the forboding abnormalities of cardiac electrophysiological signals and emitting signals from parts of the heart other than the sinoatrial node. These signals, with different frequencies and different conducting directions, will then be conducted to the ventricles. Throughout this process, the atria are in a state of rapid and disordered fibrillation, hence the vivid name of atrial fibrillation.
