Diseases
On the following pages you will learn about your disease, symptoms, diagnostics and what can be done about it. Ask your physician about CIED infection and the use of TauroPace™ in the prevention.
Bradycardia – slow heart beat
Bradycardia means slow heart beat. The heart rate which is usually 60 to 100 per minute at rest in adults remains below 60 per minute at rest causing symptoms. For some persons a slow heart beat can be normal (young healthy individual or athlete).
During bradycardia the bodies organs and brain are not supplied enough oxygen. This will eventually lead to dizziness, fatigue, shortness of breath or fainting. These symptoms may occur during everyday...read more
Bradycardia – slow heart beat
Bradycardia means slow heart beat. The heart rate which is usually 60 to 100 per minute at rest in adults remains below 60 per minute at rest causing symptoms. For some persons a slow heart beat can be normal (young healthy individual or athlete).
During bradycardia the bodies organs and brain are not supplied enough oxygen. This will eventually lead to dizziness, fatigue, shortness of breath or fainting. These symptoms may occur during everyday activity or at rest.
How does it occur?
A bradycardia can be a result of structural or electrical damage of the heart tissue:
- Sick sinus syndrome (SSS): also known as sinus node disease or sinus node dysfunction — is a group of heart rhythm problems (arrhythmias) in which the heart's natural pacemaker (sinus node) doesn't work properly.
- Chronotropic incompetence: defined as the inability of the heart to increase its rate commensurate with increased activity or demand. Impairment of everyday activity can be the result.
- Heartblock or AV-Block: is a type of heart block in which the conduction between the atria and ventricles of the heart is impaired. The result can be slow heart beat or pause.
- Carotid bulb syndrome: Carotid sinus hypersensitivity (CSH) is an exaggerated response (e.g. pressure upon lateral neck or turning of neck) to carotid sinus baroreceptor stimulation resulting in dizziness or syncope from transient diminished cerebral perfusion.
Symptoms and risks
- Bradycardia can result in dizziness, shortness of breath, fatigue and fainting.
- You are at greater risk to develop bradycardia if you are
- suffering from structural or electrical heart tissue damage (eg.: coronary artery disease, heart failure, valve impairment, any cardiomyopathy)
- prescribed special medication
- 64 years and older
- have recently undergone cardiac surgery
Diagnostics
To diagnose a bradycardia the follwing examinations will be conducted by your physician:
- Electrocardiogram (ECG)
- Threadmill-exercise-test
- Holter-ECG
- Tilt test
- Mandatory eventrecorder
- Electrophysiologic testing (EP)
- Implantable heart monitor
Treatment
A permanent pacemaker is the most common therapy for symptomatic bradycardia.
closeTachycardia – fast heartbeat
Tachycardia or tachyarrhythmia is a fast heartbeat, exceeding 100 beats per minute during rest in an adult. Symptoms like dizziness, fainting and stenocardia are common.
What happens?
If tachycardia occurs exceeding 100 beats per minute - in some cases even 200 beats per minute - the heart can not keep up pumping oxygen saturated blood sufficiently resulting in the symptoms mentioned above.
Tachycardia can originate from the upp...read more
Tachycardia – fast heartbeat
Tachycardia or tachyarrhythmia is a fast heartbeat, exceeding 100 beats per minute during rest in an adult. Symptoms like dizziness, fainting and stenocardia are common.
What happens?
If tachycardia occurs exceeding 100 beats per minute - in some cases even 200 beats per minute - the heart can not keep up pumping oxygen saturated blood sufficiently resulting in the symptoms mentioned above.
Tachycardia can originate from the upper chambers, the atria (atrial tachycardia) or the lower chambers, the ventricles (ventricular tachycardia). Is the heart beat coming from the lower chambers exceeding 170 beats per minute terminology is ventricular tachycardia. Above 250 beats per minute it is called ventricular flutter. Ventricular fibrillation is an erratic electric activity resulting in no or insufficient cardiac function (output failure). This causes the blood pressure to plummet resulting in organ failure. This will eventually be lethal.
Why does your heart race?
Tachycardia can be the result of:
- high blood pressure (arterial hypertension)
- structural or functional heart tissue conditions like coronary artery disease, cardiomyopathy (any type), valvular impairment, heart failure and myocarditis
- vessel disease like atherosclerosis or pulmonary arterial hypertension
- thyroid gland impairment
- chronic pulmonary disease
- renal impairment
- alcohol- or drug-abuse
- emotional stress
- excessive coffein intake
- smoking
How to recognize tachycardia?
Symptoms of tachycardia:
- shortness of breath
- dizziness
- fatigue
- fainting
Treatment
Optimal medical treatment.
In some cases an ICD – implantable cardioverter/defibrillator can be an option.
closeHeartfailure
Heartfailure is the condition of the hearts inability to pump the blood, thus sufficiently supply the bodies organs with enough substrates. It is also called forward failure. Typical symptoms are shortness of breath, fatigue, faintings and swollen legs. Swollen legs are the result of venous pooling of the blood which can not be sufficiently forwarded. The liquid is remainig in the tissue surrounding the blood vessels.
Causes
Heartfailure is the result ...read more
Heartfailure
Heartfailure is the condition of the hearts inability to pump the blood, thus sufficiently supply the bodies organs with enough substrates. It is also called forward failure. Typical symptoms are shortness of breath, fatigue, faintings and swollen legs. Swollen legs are the result of venous pooling of the blood which can not be sufficiently forwarded. The liquid is remainig in the tissue surrounding the blood vessels.
Causes
Heartfailure is the result of a structural damage of the heart. It normally develops somewhat slowly. Causes can be long history of high blood pressure, heart vessel disease of valve impairment. Acute heart failure can be the result of a heart attack. Impaired ejection fraction can cause the following symptoms:
Symptoms
Whereas acute onset of heartfailure with symptoms like shortness of breath, dizzines and fainting will lead to diagnosis and treatment somewhat fast, the time of the onset of chronic heartfailure is sometimes not clear and above mentioned symptoms can develop slowly leading to delayed treatment.
In general symptoms are:
- shortness of breath
- coughing with produce
- swelling of legs and feet
- lack of apetite
- fatigue
- shortness of breath in bed
- nycturia
Risc factors
Some people are at a higher risk to develop heart failure than others. The development of heart failure can often not be foreseen. But risk factors are well known:
- high blood pressure (arterial hypertension)
- coronary artery disease – heart attack (myocardial infarction)
- innate or acquired valve impairment
- congenital heart defect
- heart tissue defect (cardiomyopathy)
- infection of the heart (endocarditis)
- inflammation of the heart tissue (myocarditis)
- family history of cardiac diseases
- diabetes
- cardiac arrhythmia
Diagnosis
Your physician is able to distinguish if your symptoms refer to the development of heart failure. If you are suffering from heart failure he will be able to distinguish the reason for developing heart failure and its level of progression.
First steps would be to gather the patients medical history and to conduct a total body inspection:
- Echocardiography (ultrasound of the heart)
- Electrocardiogram (ECG)
- Chest x-ray
- Threadmill exercise test
- Coronaryangiography (catheter lab)
- Cardiac computed tomography
- Cardiac MRI
- Myocardial scintigraphy
Your physician will check your heart´s function by cardiac ultrasound on a regular basis.
Treatment
Optimal medical treatment.
According to the level of impairment you might be eligible to be implanted with a special pacemaker device. Ask your physician for further information regarding pacemakers and device infection prevention with TauroPace™.
closeUnconsciousness
About three million times per year a person will faint in the US. Severe injuries can be the result. Sudden loss of consciousness can happen once, but it can also be reoccurring in time. Life quality of these patients is massively impaired: daily life is changing, fear and depression are common.
Loss of consciousness, collapse, blackout: many terminations for one state - syncope.
Why does it happen?
Only a few seconds of lack of perfusion of...read more
Unconsciousness
About three million times per year a person will faint in the US. Severe injuries can be the result. Sudden loss of consciousness can happen once, but it can also be reoccurring in time. Life quality of these patients is massively impaired: daily life is changing, fear and depression are common.
Loss of consciousness, collapse, blackout: many terminations for one state - syncope.
Why does it happen?
Only a few seconds of lack of perfusion of the cortex unconsciousness will occur. Quite often with typical harbingers, sometimes out of nothing.
Signs or symptoms, precursors of unconsciousness
- dizziness
- fainting
- nausea
- lack of orientation
- sweating
- slurring vision
Please visit your doctor if you are experiencing these sensations.
Types of syncope
Reflex-Syncope
A neuronal reflex is leading to a sudden decrease of median aterial pressure, heartbeat is slowing down. Altered venous pooling leads to dizziness and fainting with collapse.
The following can lead to neuronal reflex syncope:
- fear, pain
- optic stimulus
- bad odor
- upright position, standing for a long time
- psychoemotional stress
Orthostatic syncope
Fast change of lying position to upright position leads to venous pooling and lack of oxygen in the cortex, the patient will see stars or blackout.
Conditions that may lead to orthostatic syncope are lack of hydration through loss or failure of uptake
Cardiac Syncope
Whereas cardiac arrhythmia are common and mostly do not lead to symptoms, some arrhythmia can lead to fainting or even sudden cardiac death.
Diagnostics
To distinguish whether cardiac arrhythmia or anything else led to a syncope, your physician will ask you about your medical history, signs, symptoms and precursors of your unconsciousness.
To distinguish different types of syncope and to rule out cardiac arrhythmia electrocardiogram, holter ECG (up to seven days) and even a cardiac eventrecorder (pressed on chest whenever symptoms occur) will be conducted.
In case of sudden unconsciousness without precursors an implantable eventrecorder can lead to a diagnosis with the possibility to monitor your heart remotely for the period of three years.
Treatment
If cardiac arrhythmia is the underlying disease, and its treatment by other therapies is obsolete, a pacemaker or even defibrillator implantation may be the proper treatment.
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