It is difficult to draw the portrait of the "typical pacemaker patient." Pacemaker patients consist of infants and children, athletes and scholars, the aged and infirm. Despite the fact that pacemakers have been standard medicine in medicine for cardiac arrhythmias for over 50 years, most habitancy do not know much about them. In fact, sometimes habitancy get symptoms, see their doctor, and are surprised to find out that a pacemaker is the prescription.
People get pacemakers to strict a qoute with the heart known as a cardiac arrhythmia. In layman's terms, it means the heart's natural rhythm is getting out-of-whack.
While just about every person probably experiences occasional but very short bouts of out-of-rhythm cardiac activity, some habitancy have stubborn arrhythmias that cause symptoms, impair their capability to lead a general life, and are largely unpredictable. These habitancy need pacemakers. Symptoms that may mean you need a pacemaker consist of fatigue, dizziness, lightheadedness, even fainting, as well as inability to practice without getting overly out of breath.
These are pretty vague symptoms and a someone could undoubtedly have all of those conditions and not need a pacemaker. But let's talk about what's undoubtedly going on.
The salutary heart beats in a specific rhythm that coordinates the heart's upper chambers (atria) and lower chambers (ventricles) in such a way that the heart beat is quite productive at interesting a very large quantity of blood throughout the body. This blood is called cardiac output. If cardiac production drops to zero, the someone dies in a matter of minutes.
But in many cases, the electrical theory of the heart (not the pumping ability) starts to falter. This is an electrical qoute of the heart-not a qoute with the heart's capability to pump blood. Yet many habitancy do not even realize the heart as an electrical system.
Electrical impulses produced by the heart guide the heart's rhythm. If the heart stops producing electricity in a quarterly manner or the electricity no longer travels properly straight through the heart muscle, the result can be an arrhythmia.
There are two main types of arrhythmia that can lead to a person's getting a pacemaker. The first is called "sinus node dysfunction," which sounds very complicated. It undoubtedly means that the heart no longer produces electrical vigor at the right rate.
The heart has the extraordinary capability to produce electricity. This is concluded by a small area of tissue called the sinoatrial node (nicknamed "sinus node" or just "sinus") in the upper right hand side of the heart. If the sinus node gets sluggish or produces electricity erratically or produces electricity fine at low rates but can't keep up when you practice and need a faster heart rate ... That is sinus node dysfunction.
About half of all habitancy with pacemakers have this condition. The resulting arrhythmia for a someone with sinus node dysfunction is a heart rate that is too slow to maintain general activity. The medical term for this is "sinus bradycardia." Because you don't get adequate cardiac production to do general things, you can find yourself getting winded, tired, dizzy, or even passing out doing things you used to do.
The second kind of arrhythmia that can lead to a pacemaker sounds a lot simpler, but the name is a bit of a misnomer. It's called "heart block." Heart block isn't undoubtedly a blockage at all. Instead, it means that the electrical impulses produced by the heart no longer voyage efficiently straight through the heart muscle. The electrical vigor gets delayed or even blocked in some areas.
In the salutary heart, the electrical vigor that causes the heart to beat starts in the sinoatrial node (top, right side of the heart). It then travels out over the atria and then downward. As it makes its ways to the ventricles, it passes straight through a junction called the "atrioventricular node" or Av node.
Once the electrical vigor goes straight through the Av node, it travels to the ventricle and causes the ventricles to compact and pump blood. Heart block occurs when there is a qoute at the Av node. Sometimes the electrical vigor gets delayed in such a way that the atria and ventricles are no longer working together.
In ultimate forms of heart block, the vigor from the top half of the heart cannot make its way down to the lowest half at all (this is called "complete heart block"). Because the atria and ventricles do not work in harmony, cardiac production is impaired. The result is the same slew of symptoms: lightheadedness, dizziness, shortness of breath, feeling tired all of the time, and even fainting.
About half of all habitancy who need pacemakers have some form of heart block (it can be mild to severe).
Arrhythmias can get fairly complicated. For example, one someone might have both types of these arrhythmias that want a pacemaker, that is, one someone can have sinus node dysfunction and heart block at the same time. Even individuals who might only have one arrhythmia right now can invent someone else kind of arrhythmia in the future.
Pacemakers perform this by "filling in the missing beats."
Pacemakers are small electrical devices implanted in the chest. They deliver electrical vigor to the heart at undoubtedly the right moment to keep it beating in a way that is as "normal" as possible. In many patients, pacemakers restore general heart rhythm. In some patients, the arrhythmia may be too severe for a general heart rhythm to be restored, but the pacemaker can at least come close.
Pacemakers "know" when to deliver electrical vigor to the heart because they monitor every beat of the heart and reply according to how the doctor programs them. This is a beneficial highlight since many pacemaker patients do not want constant pacing. In fact, for many people, arrhythmias are not permanent at all, but come and go, sometimes for brief periods. The pacemaker monitors the heart's operation and jumps in with stimulating (pacing) vigor when an arrhythmia occurs.
There is, at the moment, no cure for arrhythmias in the sense that an erratic heart rhythm cannot be restored with an carrying out or a pill. True, operations, pills, and other remedies can help administrate symptoms or even strict part of the problem.
Pacemakers are undoubtedly very safe ways of dealing with specific arrhythmias. Although they're implanted in the body, they do not deliver drugs or other chemicals into the body. They use electricity, which is the very substance the body would create itself, if it could.
Doctors have a lot of flexibility in terms of how the pacemaker is programmed, so they are suitable for a wide range of people, from athletes to newborns to bedridden seniors.
And pacemakers have a memory so that they can narrative back to the doctor what's been going on in the patient's heart. Not all arrhythmias can be treated with a pacemaker. But for rhythm disorders like heart block or sinus bradycardias, pacemakers are a safe, effective, and well proven technology that can make a big discrepancy in the lives of those that need them.
