Treatment includes medications that help the heart maintain a normal rate and rhythm, or cardioversion - using electricity to put the heart back into a regular beat. The signals are disorganized and can send the heart speeding up to 175 beats per minute. Occasional misfires result in premature atrial contractions or premature ventricular contractions.Ītrial fibrillation is like a short in the electrical system that causes an "irregularly irregular" heart rhythm. EKG stands for the original German elektrokardiogram. We refer to a regular heartbeat on an EKG as NSR - normal sinus rhythm.īy the way, the correct term should be ECG - electrocardiogram. The node sits between the atria and the ventricles, and moves the signals downward across the ventricles. It sends an electrical signal along a path of cells to the next junction box, the atrioventricular node. The sinus node sits in the upper wall of the right atrium. The master switch of the heart is the sinus node, a bundle of nerve cells that generate electrical impulses and tell the heart when to beat.
Frequently, stents are then placed to keep the arteries open.Ĭoronary artery bypass grafting (CABG - pronounced cabbage) is literally grafting a blood vessel, usually harvested from the leg, to "bypass" the blocked arteries and reroute the blood.ĭepending on the number of arteries, we call it a double, triple or quadruple bypass procedure. Medications like nitroglycerin relax the walls of the arteries and aspirin allows the blood to flow more easily.Īngioplasty widens the narrowed sections of arteries. If an artery becomes blocked, there are several treatments. They feed the heart muscle and are named after their location such as left anterior descending, right coronary artery, left coronary artery and circumflex. The coronary arteries wrap around the heart like fingers around an apple. Regurgitation means that the valve doesn't shut tightly. Stenosis means narrowing - the valve doesn't open wide enough. Sclerosis means hardening of the valves, like hardening of the arteries. We use special terminology to describe heart valve problems. Instead of a healthy "thump," we hear a "whoosh" as the blood flows across the damaged valve.Īn echocardiogram or ultrasound of the heart gives us a picture of the valves. We check on the health of the heart valves by listening for a murmur. The other two - the aortic valve and the pulmonic valve - are the doorways between the ventricles and the circulation. These open and shut to let blood move from the atria into the ventricles. Two are internal - the mitral valve and the tricuspid valve. Between 6 percent to 10 percent of people older than 65 have CHF.
The old term was congested heart, which is remembered in the term congestive heart failure. We measure heart strength and efficiency with something called an ejection fraction.