Extrasystoles on the ECG in a teenager – what is it and treatment recommendations
The most tireless organ of our body, no doubt, is the heart. It is reduced in the normal 60-70 times per minute, pumping huge amounts of blood. In view of the enormous importance of this organ, the work of the heart is regulated both from the outside (through the effect of hormones and the autonomic nervous system on the myocardium) and from the inside (the system of self-regulation and automatic heart function). However, this is also a kind of “Achilles’ heel” of the heart – sometimes these two systems work in isolation, leading to various heart rhythm disorders.
Many healthy children and adolescents in the period of 12-14 years for the first time go to a study such as electrocardiography – registration of changes in the electric field of the heart. This study is carried out as part of a routine medical examination, and often it records a heart rhythm disorder such as beats, an extraordinary, sudden contraction of the heart. Extrasystoles are the most common cause of arrhythmias in people of different ages. For many adolescents, this condition does not manifest itself with absolutely no symptoms, only a few note periodic interruptions in the work of the heart and heartbeat. Parents often start to panic when they see such an ECG conclusion, thinking that their child has a serious pathology. However, such results of electrocardiography in adolescence are quite common and temporary.
The heart of an adult and the heart of a child differ in many ways from each other, in addition to the size of the differences relate to the distribution of muscle mass and frequency of contractions. In adolescence, there is a rapid change in the entire cardiovascular system, the body matures and needs a different blood supply to the organ. Already these rapid changes in themselves lead to the emergence of extrasystoles – during the growth of the heart, special, excitable elements arise among its cells, capable for one reason or another to generate a nerve electrical impulse that causes a contraction of cardiomyocytes – myocardial cells. The structure of the myocardium, especially the fact that absolutely all cardiomyocytes are interconnected in a single three-dimensional network, therefore, the electrical impulse that has arisen in one place very quickly spreads to the whole heart and causes its contraction – this is the extrasystole. As a rule, after the end of adolescence and puberty, the excitable myocardial cells are already regulated by both intracardiac and intracardiac factors, so extrasystoles no longer arise.