Ventricular tachycardia can either be stable or unstable. Pulseless ventricular tachycardia is when the lower chambers of the heart take over as the pacemaker and beat too fast to effectively eject blood from its chambers. There is monomorphic V-tach which means the exact same electrical trace on each beat (that the abnormal pacing comes from a single spot) to polymorphic VT — where there are multiple competing generators of the rhythm so they look different to ECG.
A special king of VT — Torsades is when there is a sine wave appearance to the ECG and usually is propagated by something called q on t phenomena where the repolarization of the heart takes a longer time than usual and as such when an impulse hits, there is a rhythm that sets up.
In cases there the VT is pulseless, it is imperative that CPR is started immediately, and the patient is defibrillated quickly. If VT has a pulse, generally the trick is to defibrillate the patient, but in conjunction with the beats that are occurring (called synchronous defibrillation).
And unlike the putz who tries to make everything about the COVID vaccination, VT is a very real and sudden cause of cardiac death. VT / VF is the reason every person should know how to give effective CPR because you can save a life.
I am sad to hear Of his passing — he was one of my favorites.
I had an episode of ventricular fibrillation in 1981. One Sunday evening I got up to take a batch of cookies out of the over when my heart started racing.
It slowed when I sat down again. We went to bed, then it started again Monday morning, so I called in sick, them my wife took me to the ER, where we had to wait.
She finally called someone over to have a look at me. As soon as he put a stethoscope on me, he called for a wheelchair.
An hour or so later they gave me a sedative and put the paddles on me. When I came out of it they cardiologist said I have WPW syndrome.
They gave me medication to take home and said if it happens again they would cut a nerve that was short circuiting the heart.
I was 34 at the time. They said it may go away as I get older. I took the medication for about a week, don’t remember why I stopped, but it never happened again.