What are the symptoms of atrial fibrillation?

People with atrial fibrillation often get palpitations (an awareness of their heartbeat). Other symptoms include:

• Chest pain
• Being short of breath; and
• Feeling light-headed.

The easiest way to diagnose atrial fibrillation is to monitor the heart rate and rhythm. The doctor can check your pulse to see if it is unusually fast or slow, or irregular. This is confirmed by performing an ECG (electrocardiogram) that looks at the electrical activity of your heart.

Other tests can be done to find out the underlying cause of the atrial fibrillation (for example, checking your blood pressure or having a blood test to check your thyroid hormone levels).

Atrial fibrillation is not a life-threatening problem but it does need treatment to:

• Slow the heart to prevent it from getting tired; and
• Thin the blood to reduce the chance of a stroke.
• Atrial fibrillation is treated as follows.
• With medication such as betablockers, digoxin or amiodarone
• Cardioversion
• Radiofrequency Ablation

During atrial fibrillation, blood can pool in the atrium and cause small blood clots. The clots can travel out of the heart and become lodged in the arteries of the brain. This will cause a stroke, also known as a cerebral vascular accident. To help avoid a stroke, medication is usually prescribed to help prevent clots from forming. The medication prescribed is usually aspirin or warfarin, but will depend on your condition.