United States or Czechia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The lesion which is most apt to cause auricular fibrillation and more or less permanently irregular heart is perhaps mitral stenosis. Another frequent cause of more or less permanent irregularity is the excessive use of alcohol. It also is not quite determinaible whether a heart that is so misbehaving has a recurrence of such misbehavior more readily than a heart which has never been so affected.
Absorption of some toxins or poisons which could act on the blood supply of the ventricles could also be a cause of this condition. This irregular ventricular contraction sometimes displaces the apex beat. Ztschr. f. He also found that compression of this nodal region of the auricle from some growth or other disturbance in the mediastinal region could cause auricular fibrillation. Arch. f. klin.
This condition of auricular fibrillation occurs occasionally in valvular disease, and perhaps most frequently in mitral stenosis; but it can occur without valvular lesions, and with any valvular lesion. If it occurs in younger patients, valvular disease is apt to be a cause; if in older patients, sclerosis or myocardial degeneration is generally present.
Any treatment which lowers the heart rate is of advantage, such as the stopping of tea and coffee, and the administration of digitalis, together with rest and quiet. While large doses of digitalis are advised, and large doses are given as soon as a patient with auricular fibrillation comes under treatment, such large dosage is dangerous practice.
Although a patient with auricular fibrillation may have been incapacitated by this heart activity, he may not yet have dilated ventricles, and the digitalis need perhaps not be long continued. If on account of some heart strain or some unaccountable cause the fibrillation recurs, he of course must again receive the digitalis.
The number of ventricular contractions was increased, but not enough to indicate the complete removal of the heart block. Med. These stimuli are irregular in intensity, and the contractions caused are irregular in degree. If the wave lengths of the pulse tracing show no regularity- -if, in fact, hardly two adjacent wave lengths are alike the disturbance is auricular fibrillation.
The greater frequency of syphilis in men than in women should be considered in this difference in frequency. White finds that hyperthyroidism of long standing is often attended with auricular fibrillation. He does not find that alcohol, tea and coffee play much part in causing these serious disturbances of the heart.
It has recently been shown that the permanently irregular pulse is due to fibrillary contraction, or really auricular fibrillation in other words, irregular stimuli proceeding from the auricle and that such an irregular pulse is not due to disturbance at the auriculoventricular node, as believed a short time ago.
As previously stated, ventricular fibrillation is a very serious condition, and may be a cause of sudden death in angina pectoris, and is probably then caused by disturbed circulation in one of the coronary arteries causing an irregular blood supply to one or other of the ventricles.
However this may be, the cause having been determined or presumed by the physician, it should be so impressed on the patient that he does not again repeat the insult to his heart. Auricular fibrillation is at times apparently a clinical entity much as is angina pectoris, but it is often a symptom of some other condition.
Word Of The Day