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Specialties & Conditions Arrhythmias & Electrophysiology
Arrhythmia is an abnormal rhythm of the heart. It means that a child’s heart is beating either too fast or too slow.
Just as electricity flows through power lines, electrical signals flow through the heart. When signals and pathways don’t work as they should in this electrical flow, it creates an arrhythmia. These electrical problems usually happen because of a condition a baby is born with or an illness that affects the heart.
Doctors who study and treat arrhythmias are called electrophysiologists (EPs). At Lurie Children’s, we have a large EP program that diagnoses and treats all types of arrhythmias in children and adolescents.
“Arrhythmia” is a big term that refers to many different problems with the heart’s electrical system. Abnormal heartbeats range in symptoms, causes and severity. Some arrhythmias happen at rest, whereas others may only emerge during exercise.
EPs generally divide arrhythmias into these two groups:
Babies can’t tell you their heart is beating too fast or too slowly. And even once children are old enough to know that something doesn’t feel right, the abnormal heartbeat might only happen at certain times. This is why symptoms can be tricky to spot.
There are some symptoms we look for, though. For tachycardia, this includes:
With bradycardia, we tend to see symptoms such as:
We are often able to diagnose an arrhythmia before a baby is born, through our Fetal Cardiology Program. If your obstetrician hears something that doesn’t sound right, they may send you for a fetal echocardiogram to look more closely at your baby’s heart.
We also use a simple, noninvasive procedure called an electrocardiogram, or EKG, to gather electrical information about the heart. We can perform EKGs on children of any age.
Not all arrhythmias show up on an EKG. We often have children wear a Holter monitor, so we can look at their heartbeats over 24 hours. Our team is very good at reading these, and picking up abnormalities others may miss.
If the abnormal rhythm is dangerous or is causing symptoms that interfere with life, then we look at treatments.
For tachycardia, we may start with medication. For some children, we’ll do cardiac ablation which gets rid of the arrhythmia for good. For some types of tachycardias, we’ll recommend implanting a device that can shock the heart back to a normal rhythm.
There are some medications we use for bradycardia, but if the arrhythmia is severe enough, we look at other options. Usually, a child will need a permanent pacemaker. We’re experts at implanting these.
Our EP Program sees a large volume of children, from Chicago and beyond. Parents feel confident in coming here because:
Arrhythmias are most dangerous when they are undiagnosed. Once we have a diagnosis, we can manage a child’s arrhythmia.
We seek to prevent symptoms of heart failure or dangerous episodes of sudden cardiac arrest. We also want kids to be able to be kids. We work closely with families to help them make the best decisions for their child.
We continue to monitor children with arrhythmias as they become adults, through our Adult Congenital Heart Disease (ACHD) Program.
To help prepare families for their care with Lurie Children's Heart Center, we have compiled a list of resources about treatment and recovery. Learn how to get ready for an inpatient stay or outpatient visit, and read about our support services for patients and families.
