Ok, So I am doing my prep work for my pt tomorrow. I am in second semester and we just started learning cardiac last week. I am trying to understand A-Fib. This is my understanding from all my research:
A-Fib causes rapid disorganized, uncoordinated contractions of the atrial musculature. It's usually associated with other things like CAD, HTN, hyperthyroidism, all of which my pt has.
So this is where I am getting confused. When I visually think about what the heart is doing and when I think about what my prof was saying in class, I picture the the atrium on top beating faster then the ventricle on the bottom. Then I read my med-surg book and it says: "Atrial rate is 300-600, Ventricular rate is usually 120-200 in untreated A-fib" ok makes sense. BUT THEN it says: "A rapid ventricular response reduces the time for ventricular filling, resulting in a smaller stroke volume" So now I'm confused. Am I reading this wrong (I do that) A-fib is the atrial rate increased correct not the ventricular? So is this saying that the ventricle tries to speed up to keep up with the atrial rate? I do understand the smaller stroke volume part. I'm just looking for clarification if someone could please :)
I hope I explained my confusion properly lol.