Cardiac Arrhythmias
The term arrhythmia refers to an abnormal heart rhythm. Atrial arrhythmia is also known as supraventricular arrhythmia, which begins in the upper chambers of the heart, and ventricular arrhythmia, starts in the lower chambers of the heart; however, the most common arrhythmia is atrial fibrillation, which has become common among most populations.
One can also have an irregular heart rate, such as with tachycardia (when the heart beats too fast) or with bradycardia (when the heart beats too slow). During an arrhythmia, the heart may not be able to pump enough blood to the body and a lack of adequate blood flow can damage the brain, heart, and other organs.
Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy
Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT), also called biventricular pacing, uses an implantable biventricular pacemaker, which sends electrical impulses to the heart to help the right and left ventricles pump together more normally.
In order to re-synchronize contractions and improve the pumping efficiency of the heart, CRT uses 3 leads, one going into the right atria, one to the right ventricle and one to the left ventricle. This pacemaker is usually implanted just below the clavicle.
This is different from a traditional pacemaker, which only treats the right ventricle.
This is a therapy for patients’ who have failed medical management to treat their arrhythmia, and typically for those with advanced cardiac failure.
Patients’ who use CRT usually have improved quality of life, improved ability to exercise and less hospitalizations for cardiac failure.
Radiofrequency Catheter Ablation
An ablation is used to treat some types of rapid heart beating. A catheter with an electrode at its tip is guided to the area of heart muscle where there is an extra pathway and a mild, painless radiofrequency energy is transmitted to the pathway. This causes the heart muscle cells in a very small area to die, which stops the area from conducting the extra impulses that causes the heart to beat too rapidly. An ablation procedure is used to treat certain heart rhythm disorders such as (arrhythmias), including atrial fibrillation, atrial flutter, supraventricular tachycardia, Wolff-Parkinson-White (WPW) syndrome and ventricular tachycardia.