What is Atrial Fibrillation?
Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common form of arrhythmia, which is the medical term for an irregular heart rhythm.Your heart has four chambers - two upper chambers called atria and two lower chambers called ventricles.In a normal heartbeat, electrical signals tell these chambers to work together to create a regular rhythm that pumps blood efficiently. With AF, the electrical signals in the upper chambers become chaotic, causing them to beat out of sync with the lower chambers. This causes an irregular, and often rapid, heart rhythm. Symptoms of AF vary widely. Episodes of AF often have no symptoms at all. Occasionally, an individual will feel a flutter or quiver in their chest. Sometimes people report symptoms such as light-headedness, chest pain and shortness of breath.
How serious is AF?
If left untreated, AF can cause blood clots to form in the upper chambers of the heart. If one of these clots is pumped out, it can lead to stroke, heart failure or other serious medical complications.When detected early though, AF is a manageable condition and people with it often live healthy, active lives.How common is AF?More than 30 million people worldwide have AF, and that number has increased by more than 30% in the past 20 years. AF is diagnosed in approximately 2% of people younger than 65 and about 9% of people 65 and older.
How AF is treated ?
Doctors recommend specific treatments depending on how long someone has had AF, how troublesome their symptoms are, whether they have other problems with their heart and the underlying cause of their condition. The goal of any treatment is to minimise AF symptoms and prevent long-term complications such as stroke and heart failure. In many patients, prescription medications alone can manage their condition. Others might need their doctor to perform a procedure such as electrical cardioversion - a method that restores the natural heart rhythm. For more advanced cases, cardiac ablation surgery may be necessary to neutralise erratic electrical signals coming from an area of the heart.As part of their treatment, a doctor may also want to track how often a patient's heart is in AF. This is sometimes referred to as AF burden and is represented as a percentage. If a patient's burden is 50%, it means their heart had an irregular rhythm 50% of the time. Regardless of the specific treatments, patients are often given blood thinners to reduce the risk of blood clots and strokes. Do not make any changes to your medications without discussing those changes with your doctor first. Most patients can benefit from taking steps to improve the overall health of their heart as this can reduce the percentage of time their heart spends in AF. Beneficial steps can include:
•Eating more fruits, vegetables and whole grains, as well as less salt and saturated fats• Exercising regularly• Getting good sleep• Maintaining a healthy weight• Managing stress• Quitting smoking• Drinking alcohol only in moderation or not at all