Atrial Fibrillation
Basics
Description
Description
- Dysrhythmia characterized by seemingly disorganized atrial depolarizations without effective atrial contraction
- Caused by multiple re-entrant waveforms within the atria
- Atrial rate ranges from 350–600 beats per minute (bpm)
- Decrease in cardiac output with 3-fold risk of heart failure
- Prone to embolus formation with 5-fold risk of stroke
- Most common clinical arrhythmia:
- Prevalence increasing with age
Etiology
Etiology
- Systemic disease:
- HTN
- Hyperthyroidism
- Chronic pulmonary disease
- Infection
- Pulmonary embolus
- Hypoxia
- Drugs (e.g., sympathomimetics)
- Acute alcohol ingestion (holiday heart syndrome)
- Obesity
- Electrolyte disturbance
- Thyroid disease
- Underlying cardiac disease:
- Cardiomyopathy
- CAD
- Valvular disease, especially mitral
- Pericarditis
- Sick sinus syndrome
- Myocardial contusion
- CHF
- Congenital heart disease
- Idiopathic:
- Absence of any known etiologic factor
- No clinical or echocardiographic evidence of heart disease
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Citation
Schaider, Jeffrey J., et al., editors. "Atrial Fibrillation." 5-Minute Emergency Consult, 6th ed., Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2020. Emergency Central, emergency.unboundmedicine.com/emergency/view/5-Minute_Emergency_Consult/307029/1.3/Atrial_Fibrillation.
Atrial Fibrillation. In: Schaider JJJ, Barkin RMR, Hayden SRS, et al, eds. 5-Minute Emergency Consult. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2020. https://emergency.unboundmedicine.com/emergency/view/5-Minute_Emergency_Consult/307029/1.3/Atrial_Fibrillation. Accessed December 9, 2024.
Atrial Fibrillation. (2020). In Schaider, J. J., Barkin, R. M., Hayden, S. R., Wolfe, R. E., Barkin, A. Z., Shayne, P., & Rosen, P. (Eds.), 5-Minute Emergency Consult (6th ed.). Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. https://emergency.unboundmedicine.com/emergency/view/5-Minute_Emergency_Consult/307029/1.3/Atrial_Fibrillation
Atrial Fibrillation [Internet]. In: Schaider JJJ, Barkin RMR, Hayden SRS, Wolfe RER, Barkin AZA, Shayne PP, Rosen PP, editors. 5-Minute Emergency Consult. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2020. [cited 2024 December 09]. Available from: https://emergency.unboundmedicine.com/emergency/view/5-Minute_Emergency_Consult/307029/1.3/Atrial_Fibrillation.
* Article titles in AMA citation format should be in sentence-case
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T1 - Atrial Fibrillation
ID - 307029
ED - Barkin,Adam Z,
ED - Shayne,Philip,
ED - Rosen,Peter,
ED - Schaider,Jeffrey J,
ED - Barkin,Roger M,
ED - Hayden,Stephen R,
ED - Wolfe,Richard E,
BT - 5-Minute Emergency Consult
UR - https://emergency.unboundmedicine.com/emergency/view/5-Minute_Emergency_Consult/307029/1.3/Atrial_Fibrillation
PB - Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
ET - 6
DB - Emergency Central
DP - Unbound Medicine
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