Strong heartbeat in the child

What if your child has a strong palpitations? Often, such complaints can occur after physical (skiing or roller-skating, running, intense physical exercises) or emotional overload, because of the elevated temperature, possibly associated with infection, due to severe fright, etc. To determine whether there is a presence the child has a tachycardia, or, in another way, palpitations, it is necessary to know which values ​​of heart rate are the norm for a particular age.

Tachycardia can be determined in a child according to his age, based on the following data:

Pathophysiology

Nerve supply to the heart mainly occurs with the help of the sympathetic ganglion and the vagus nerve. Pain sensations are transmitted through afferent fibers, which are associated with sympathetic ganglia. As a rule, most people do not notice a normal heartbeat. Individual patients in childhood may complain of a sensation of noise in the ears, heart palpitations and pawning of the ears.

Tachycardia is a condition in which you can see an increase in the value of heart rate, or, more simply, heart palpitations. Most often, tachycardia is associated with a worsening due to various reasons, the conductivity of electrical signals, which cause the ventricular walls to contract. In some cases, tachycardia can be congenital, which is diagnosed during pregnancy.

Types of tachycardia in children

There are two types of tachycardia. In children, the supraventricular tachycardia is most often detected. With this variety, an abnormally rapid contraction of the lower and upper chambers of the heart can be observed. As a rule, supraventricular tachycardia does not carry a danger to life and often passes even without medical intervention.

The second type of tachycardia is the so-called ventricular. It is diagnosed when the lower parts of the heart, or the ventricles, abnormally quickly pump blood. This species in children is extremely rare, but it can be quite serious danger. In this case, a mandatory course of treatment is prescribed.

Symptoms

Recognize tachycardia in children can be on symptoms that are similar to the symptoms of tachycardia in adults. It can be heart palpitations, dizziness, sweating, weakness, chest pain, fainting, shortness of breath, nausea, pallor, etc. Infants with tachycardia are usually very moody and restless, and also show increased drowsiness. In infants it is usually difficult to recognize this pathology, because they can not tell about the symptoms and describe the sensations. In addition, some symptoms may not refer to tachycardia, but to serve as a sign of other diseases, for example, such as bronchial asthma, etc.

Treatment

Type of treatment of tachycardia is prescribed depending on the severity of the disease, the age of the child and the type of tachycardia. Most often, supraventricular tachycardia is treated with medicines, or, if the child's age permits, a reflex action on the vagus nerve. For the treatment of ventricular tachycardia, surgical intervention or more invasive treatments, such as radiofrequency ablation, can be prescribed, in which a catheter emitting radio waves is inserted into the heart that removes heart tissue that causes irregularities in the rhythm. In most cases, after this procedure, tachycardia disappears, but individual patients, if necessary, a doctor may be prescribed additional medication.