My Dad has had an arhytmia for years. Last summer when he was seen at hospital for a back problem, the on-call cardiologist decided that by-gosh, he was going to have it fixed. My father, a gentle and kind-hearted man, decided to play along.
He was put on blood-thinners in preparation for applying an electrical pulse to re-sync the rates of the upper and lower chambers. After two tries, the cardiologist got Dad’s heart in sync. Dad reports that he’s got more energy. Not bad for a guy who turns 80 next year.
Now, there’s research, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, comparing the results of the two methods for treating atrial fibrillation: the common strategy used on my Dad, which is to resync via drugs and/or electrical defibrillation, and the non-obvious strategy of altering the rate of the other chamber using inexpensive drugs. Turns out that the non-obvious strategy may lead to better outcomes.
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