Arrhythmias are changes in the formation or conduction of cardiac electrical impulses, which alter the rhythm and frequency with which the heart beats .

In most cases, they do not pose any danger to health, although they can cause some anxiety if the person experiences these changes.

Arrhythmias usually have no symptoms and do not interfere with the heart’s ability to pump blood. However, when this happens it is considered serious. Depending on their origin, they can even result in sudden death.

Arrhythmias initiated in the ventricles – lower internal chambers that pump the accumulated blood volume from the atria to the peripheral tissues – are the most complicated. They consist of ventricular tachycardia (VT) and ventricular fibrillation (VF). Both are life-threatening arrhythmias and are commonly associated with heart attacks.

Cardiac arrhythmia is therefore a disturbance in the formation and conduction (through nerve bundles) of electrical impulses that cause and determine the rhythm of heartbeats.

When the disturbance occurs, the rhythm of the heartbeat is altered in one of the following ways:

• Tachycardia (faster heart rate);
• Bradycardia (lower heart rate);
• Palpitation or dysrhythmia (irregular)

Arrhythmia is not, in itself, a heart disease, but a symptom that can be related to several diseases or conditions of the heart. There are, however, a set of risk factors. The most frequent ones are:

Arterial Fibrillation

Atrial fibrillation is one of the most common arrhythmias and occurs when several electrical impulses are triggered simultaneously, giving the heart muscle several contraction orders at the same time.

This situation generates an irregular and very fast heart rate. The heart beats unevenly and accelerated and the blood pumped to the rest of the body is no longer enough. Generally, there may be formation of atrial thrombi, leading to a significant risk of encephalic vascular accident due to embolism.