Why do people have arrhythmias?
Lots of reasons, but if you think about things that are going to make the heart unhappy, then those are the things that will produce arrhythmias acutely cardiac ischemia, hypoxia, MI, changes in electrolytesobviously in a situation like this you are going to be treating the underlying problem either with anti-ischemic treatments in situations like anginal CHF (remember “LMNOP”- Lasix, Morphine, Nitrates, Oxygen and Position); or clot-busting an acute MI and hopefully this will minimize the conditions that are producing the arrhythmias in the first place. Chronic changes that produce arrhythmias have to do with processes that make cardiac chambers do things over long periods of time that they don’t want to do, producing an abnormal change in their size. Anything that makes a chamber “stretch” chronically, will produce chronic arrhythmias the classic example is cor pulmonale (“lung-heart” that is, heart problems caused by the lungs.
