Kent Heart Rhythm Blog

Most simply, cardiac electrophysiology is the field of medicine concerned with the study and treatment of the heart’s intrinsic electrical activity. Electrical activity - the movement of charged particles down gradients and across barriers - forms the basis of many living processes including nerve function, contraction and relaxation of muscles, peristalsis of the gut, and movement and coordination of the heart. Each heart beat is the product of a highly choreographed sequence of electrical events that allows a heartbeat to (nearly) always start in the same place and spread in the same way through the heart, up to 100,000 times a day in a healthy human. The route of spread of the heartbeat is important, because as the beat spreads, so the heart twitches into life - moves - to propel blood forward through the body via arteries and veins. If the heart’s electrical activity is not properly coordinated, then the mechanical function of the heart - the pumping action - will be compromised. W

The terms “atrial fibrillation” and “atrial flutter” are often used almost interchangeably, and even within the medical profession there is some haziness about where one problem stops and the other starts. The difference between these two diagnoses is important, however, because symptoms, prognosis and treatment options differ considerably between these two distinct rhythm problems. A lot of the misunderstanding in this area arises because the term “flutter” tends to be used rather imprecisely by both patients and doctors. I meet quite a lot of patients, for example, who describe the feeling they get in their chest as a “flutter”. There is of course nothing wrong with using this word! If you feel you have a “flutter in your chest” then no-one - least of all me - is in a position to tell you that you are wrong. Where things become confusing is when your doctor then uses your terminology about the symptom you feel to describe the mechanism of the arrhythmia (the so-called “pathophysiolog