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If you have been diagnosed and treated for arrhythmia, make sure to follow your treatment plan. Your ongoing care may focus on reducing the chance that you will have another episode or a complication. Keep your regular appointments with your doctor. Ask about heart-healthy lifestyle changes that you can make to keep your arrhythmia from happening again or getting worse.

Common arrhythmia treatments include heart-healthy lifestyle changes, medicines, surgically implanted devices that control the heartbeat, and other procedures that treat abnormal electrical signals in the heart.

To diagnose arrhythmia, your doctor will ask you about your symptoms, your medical history, and any signs of arrhythmia in your family. Your doctor may also do an EKG and a physical exam as part of your diagnosis. Additional tests may be necessary to rule out another cause or to help your doctor decide on treatment.

An arrhythmia may not cause any obvious signs or symptoms. You may notice something that occurs only occasionally, or your symptoms may become more frequent over time. If left untreated, arrhythmia can lead to life-threatening complications such as stroke, heart failure, or sudden cardiac arrest.

If you or your child is at increased risk of arrhythmia, the doctor may want to do a screening to assess the risk of a life-threatening event. Sometimes screening is required to participate in competitive sports. If your child carries a genetic risk of arrhythmia, your child’s doctor may recommend regular screening to monitor your child’s heart or other family members’ health. Heart-healthy lifestyle changes and other precautions can help decrease the risk of triggering arrhythmia.

You may have an increased risk of arrhythmia because of your age, environment, family history and genetics, habits in your daily life, certain medical conditions, race or ethnicity, sex, or surgery.

Arrhythmia is caused by changes to heart tissue. It can also occur suddenly as a result of exertion or stress, imbalances in the blood, medicines, or problems with electrical signals in the heart. Typically, an arrhythmia is set off by a trigger, and the irregular heartbeat can continue if there is a problem in the heart. Sometimes the cause of an arrhythmia is unknown.

The main types of arrhythmia are bradyarrhythmias; premature, or extra, beats; supraventricular arrhythmias; and ventricular arrhythmias.

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