Find Your Rhythm: Cardiac Electrophysiology
Cardiac Electrophysiology Lab Helps Patients with Heart Rhythm Problems
Feeling short of breath, or overly fatigued? Is your heart “racing”? Do you ever pass out?
It may simply be the strain or anxiety that accompanies many life situations. Most people have experienced an unusual heartbeat or the sensation of “racing” or “skipping a beat.”
But some abnormal heartbeats, called arrhythmias, can cause extreme fatigue, palpitations or loss of consciousness. Arrhythmias can also cause cardiac arrest or sudden cardiac death, in which the heart stops delivering blood to the body. (Cardiac arrest differs from a heart attack, which is a blockage in the vessels that send blood to and from the heart.)
Advanced Technology Finds Arrhythmias
When it comes to heart disease, people tend to be more familiar with high blood pressure, blocked arteries and heart attacks than arrhythmias. Since opening in 2007, Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital’s Cardiac Catheterization Lab has saved 50 heart attack patients with on-site angioplasty procedures.
But the lab’s state-of-the-art angiography suite also helps patients identify and treat problems like arrhythmias. The lab’s cardiac electrophysiologists are heart rhythm experts who have an additional one to two years of training in the science of diagnosing and treating the electrical activities of the heart that cause arrhythmias.
“We’ll soon have the most complete, advanced technology — equal to the best downtown Chicago cardiac facilities,” says Dr. Mehran Jabbarzadeh, one of the lab’s board-certified cardiac electrophysiologists. “In some cases, not even larger research hospitals are using the latest models of implants to treat arrhythmias. But we have those devices here.”
An Anxiety Disorder — or Arrhythmia?
A person can be born with an arrhythmia or develop one because the heart is weakened by obesity, a previous heart attack or other serious illness.
“Arrhythmias affect people of all backgrounds and ages. It’s also episodic — it’s not with you constantly,” says Dr. Ray Helms, another of the lab’s electrophysiologists. “Often people are told they have an anxiety disorder — but they’re only feeling anxious because their heart is racing.”
He adds that some arrhythmias cause sudden loss of consciousness, and about ten percent of patients come to the lab because of an arrhythmia that led to a full cardiac arrest.
“It’s important to understand that some forms of arrhythmia can be fatal,” says Dr. Eric Kessler, an electrophysiologist who works with doctors Jabbarzadeh and Helms. “But even when arrhythmias aren’t of a life-threatening type, they can severely limit normal activities.”
So how do you know whether you’re just anxious and fatigued, or ready to see a specialist?
“Most patients feel distinct symptoms and recurring episodes. The sensation is a racing, fluttering feeling. The majority of patients feel tired, ” says Dr. Jabbarzadeh. “A primary care physician could refer the patient to an electrophysiologist for tests.”
Keeping the Beat, Changing Lives
Treatment can range from lifestyle changes and medications, to implanting devices, such as single- or dual-chamber pacemakers for slow or asynchronous rhythms or defibrillators for rapid, dangerous rhythms. The lab also performs ablation — a minimally invasive procedure that applies energy to destroy the small areas of abnormal tissues that cause irregular heartbeats.
“With our ablations, the patients’ quality of life changes dramatically,” says Ron Raymundo, R.N., manager of Cardiac Services at Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital. “They’re not afraid of physical activity or of everyday things that naturally make a heart speed up.”
Registered nurses like Ron Raymundo, Tony Casapao and Trish Alex assist the cardiac electrophysiologists with patient history, sedation, monitoring and medication — and keep in touch with patients once they’re back home.
“We’re involved closely with the patient before, during and after any procedure,” says Tony Casapao, R.N.
Defibrillators — Hope for the Most Vulnerable Hearts
For many patients, severe heart failure symptoms persist even with medications and pacemakers. For these patients, the lab also offers an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), one of the latest advances to help these patients live longer and live better.
Dr. Kessler explains that ICDs are like the doctors you see on television who apply paddles to a patient’s chest to bring him or her “back to life.” Though less dramatic, and smaller than the palm of a hand, ICDs work the same way by applying shock to stop the most deadly types of arrhythmia.
“It’s like having your own personal paramedic with you at all times,” says Dr. Kessler.
For patients who suffer from arrhythmias, that’s reassuring news — especially when these advanced treatment options are available right in the neighborhood.
“One focus of the Cardiac Catheterization Lab is to deliver care where the patients are,” says Dr. Helms. “We have the electrophysiology expertise and the life-saving technology right here in Lake Forest."