Tachycardiais the name used to describe a rapid heart rate. Officially, any heart rate that is faster than 100 beats per minute is deemed to be tachycardia—whether or not the tachycardia is considered to be normal or not.
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Sinus Tachycardia
Sinus tachycardia is when the sinus node is producing electrical signals more than 100 times per minute.
Sinus tachycardia—unless due to exercise, pain, infection, stimulants, or anxiety/stress—is always a physiologic response to an underlying condition, such as:
It is rarely deemed idiopathic (that is, of unknown cause).
The Abnormal Tachycardias: Cardiac Arrhythmias
However, there are also several kinds ofcardiac arrhythmias(abnormal heart rhythms) that cause tachycardia.
There are two general types of arrhythmias that produce tachycardia: the supraventricular tachycardias, which arise in the atria ofthe heart, and the ventricular tachycardias, which arise in the ventricles. These two types of tachycardia are quite different both in the types of people they usually affect and in the amount of danger they pose.
Supraventricular Tachycardias
Most types of supraventricular tachycardias (SVT) can occur in young, otherwise healthy people, though all arrhythmias happen more in older people. This is especially true foratrial fibrillation, which is much more common in the elderly.
SVTtends to occur as episodes that begin and end quite suddenly, usually without any warning whatsoever.
SVT causes:
People who have SVT usually have no symptoms at all in between episodes. But if episodes occur frequently or last for a long time, SVT can prove quite disruptive to a person’s life.
Despite how badly SVT can make you feel, it almost never poses a significant risk to life.
Types of SVT
There are many different varieties of SVT. The most common of these are:
In addition to these common varieties, there are severalkinds of SVTthat are much less common.
Ventricular Tachycardias
The ventricular tachycardias include two general kinds of arrhythmia:ventricular tachycardiaitself andventricular fibrillation(VF).
In most cases, these arrhythmias are seen in older people who have significant underlying cardiac disease, especiallycoronary artery disease (CAD)andheart failure.
Ventricular fibrillation is the most dangerous of the cardiac arrhythmias. When it occurs, it invariably leads to death within a few minutes unless it is stopped.
In VF, the electrical impulses within the ventricles suddenly become completely chaotic, the heart immediately stops beating, and a cardiac arrest occurs.Unless the victim receives effective cardiopulmonary resuscitation, death ensues within minutes.
Ventricular fibrillation is estimated to cause over 300,000 sudden deaths each year in the U.S. alone.Obviously, the best way to deal withventricular fibrillationis to prevent it.
Ventricular tachycardia is another potentially dangerous arrhythmia originating in the ventricles. While in some people ventricular tachycardia produces only minimal symptoms, more often it produces:
In contrast to ventricular fibrillation, ventricular tachycardia allows the heart to continue pumping to at least some extent in many cases. Sudden death may not be immediate and may not occur at all.
The large majority of people with ventricular tachycardia have this arrhythmia as a result of CAD or heart failure.
However, there are much less common types of ventricular tachycardia that occur in people who are young and otherwise healthy. These types of ventricular tachycardia include:
A Word From Verywell
Tachycardias are rapid heart rhythms. There are many kinds of tachycardia, and they vary from being completely normal and benign to beingimmediately lethal.
If you have a cardiac arrhythmia that is producing tachycardia, you should have a complete medical evaluation.
9 Sources
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Al-Khatib S, Stevenson W, Ackerman M, et al.2017 AHA/ACC/HRS guideline for management of patients with ventricular arrhythmias and the prevention of sudden death.Circulation. 2018 Aug;138(13):e272-e391. doi:10.1161/CIR.0000000000000549
Page RL, Joglar JA, Caldwell MA, et al.2015 ACC/AHA/HRS guideline for the management of adult patients with supraventricular tachycardia.Circulation. 2016 Sep;133(14):e506-e574. doi:10.1161/CIR.0000000000000311
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American Heart Association.Ventricular fibrillation.www.heart.org.
American Heart Association.Tachycardia: fast heart rate. Reviewed September 2016.
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