Can any help me to find the little animated explanation of AF and what happens to the heart when it is in AF please, can't find it at all.:)

[winterlass]

[Beancounter Volunteer]

Hi Winterlass

Lots of them around

I like this one (scroll down)

nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health...

or this

medmovie.com/mmdatabase/Med...

or of course You Tube

youtube.com/watch?v=K_uccmt...(Not working as expected?)

Hope this helps

Ian

[winterlass in reply to Beancounter]

Thank you Ian that's great

[BobD Volunteer]

Hi Winterlass, I can't remember where I have seen it other than at various conferences but happy to explain.

The heart is made up of four chambers. two on the left and two on the right The top chamber each side is the atria and has the job of filling the lower chamber(the ventricle) whose purpose is to do the actual pumping. . The two on the left pump the blood round the body whilst those on the right pump used blood into the lungs for re-oxygenation and back to the left atria.

In the right atria is the AV node which is the heart's natural pace maker and sends electrical signals to each of the chambers in turn to make them contract and pump in the right order. With AF, the signals to the left atria are confused and may actually come from somewhere other than the AV node. In most cases they may come via the four pulmonary veins which feed the blood back from the lungs but there are other possibilities. Because the atria is getting all the wrong signals it quivers rather than pumps and this can confuses the ventricle as that chamber may be trying to pump blood which hasn't been sent down. I have heard fibrillation as being like the atria quivering like a bag of worms.. With RF or cryo ablation the four pulmonary veins are isolated by creating scar tissue around them either by radio frequency burning or freeze burning. This it is hoped will stop the rouge impulses from getting through. sometimes other lines of scar are made if the EP thinks they are needed, rather like a series of defensive walls.

I know this is very basic but I hope it helps in some small way

BobD .

[winterlass in reply to BobD]

Thank you Bob