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You and Your Arrhythmia: A Guide to Heart Rhythm Problems for Patients and Their Families

Author(s): John A. Kastor, MD, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Maryland
Details:
  • ISBN-13: 9780763739799
  • ISBN-10:0763739790
  • Paperback    143 pages      © 2006
Price: International Sales $24.95 US List
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Overview

Cardiac arrhythmias produce rapid, slow or irregular heart beats and are extremely common and range in severity from benign to sudden, life-threatening emergencies. Some patients may be acutely conscious while others may be unaware. Whether you or a loved one suffers from heart rhythm disorders, You and Your Arrhythmia:A Guide to Heart Rhythm Problems for Patients and Their Families offers help. This book includes cases with simple explanations to provide patients and their families with a better understanding of heart rhythm disorders, diagnosis, treatment, and long-term care.

ShowKey Features

Includes case reports of patients' experiences with arrhythmias to familiarize patients and their families with the problems caused by arrhythmias.

Offers guidance and advice on diagnosis, treatment, and long-term care.

Provides authoritative, practical answers to your questions about cardiac arrhythmias.

Contains information about problems specific arrhythmias cause and the drugs and devices used to treat arrhythmias, including pacemakers and implantable defibrillators.

Describes the anatomy and physiology of the heart and the electrical components that give rise to arrhythmias.

Offers readers the chance to take a brief course in electrocardiography, a test used to diagnose arrhythmias and to evaluate the effects of treatment.

Includes electrocardiograms of some of the arrhythmias discussed in the case reports to illustrate how cardiologists recognize the various types of arrhythmias.

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ShowTable of Contents

Preface

Part I: How the Heart Works

Chapter 1: The Heart as a Pump
Chapter 2: The Heart as an Electrical Organ

Part II: Patients and Their Arrhythmias

Chapter 3: Premature Beats in a Healthy Student
Chapter 4: Atrial Fibrillation in a Medical Intern
Chapter 5: Atrial Fibrillation in a Man with a Heart Murmur
Chapter 6: Supraventricular Tachycardia (SVT) in a Healthy Young Woman
Chapter 7: Atrial Flutter in a 45-Year-Old Executive
Chapter 8: Multifocal Atrial Tachycardia in a 75-Year-Old Housewife with Emphysema and Diabetes
Chapter 9: Ventricular Tachycardia in a Man with Coronary Heart Disease
Chapter 10: Ventricular Fibrillation Producing Cardiac Arrest
Chapter 11: Heart Block in a 72-Year-Old Professor
Chapter 12: Sick Sinus Syndrome and Cardotid Sinus Hypersensitivity in a 60-Year-Old Man

Part III: Treating Arrhythmias

Chapter 13: Drugs Used to Treat Arrhythmias
Chapter 14: Devises Used to Treat Arrhythmias

Part IV: The Electrocardiogram

Chapter 15: The Machine
Chapter 16: Electrocardiograms of Arrhythmias

Part V: Historical Reports

Chapter 17: Michel Mirowski and the Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillator
Chapter 18: Wolff, Parkinson, and White

References

Index


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ShowAbout the Author(s)

John A. Kastor, MD-University of Maryland School of Medicine, Maryland

John A. Kastor, B.A., University of Pennsylvania, M.D., New York University, is Professor of Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He trained in internal medicine at Bellevue and New York University hospitals and in cardiology at the Massachusetts General Hospital. From 1969 to 1984, he was a member of the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine where he became Chief of the Cardiovascular Division in 1977. From 1984 to 1997, Dr. Kastor was Theodore E. Woodward Professor of Medicine and Chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and Chief of the Medical Service at the University of Maryland Hospital.


The mechanisms, diagnosis and management of cardiac arrhythmias and the governance of academic medical centers are his primary academic and clinical interests. He is the author or co-author of more that 130 papers and six books: two editions of Arrhythmias (W.B. Saunders 1994, 2000), Mergers of Teaching Hospitals in Boston, New York, and Northern California (University of Michigan Press, 2001; paperback edition, 2003) and Governance of Teaching Hospitals: Turmoil at Penn and Hopkins (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), Specialty Care in the Era of Managed Care: Cleveland Clinic versus University Hospitals of Cleveland, (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), and You and Your Arrhythmia: A Guide to Heart Rhythm Problems for Patients and Their Families (Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 2005).  He is currently studying the Georgetown University and George Washington university medical schools to understand the reasons for, and results of, selling their university hospitals and practice plans.

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ShowReviews

  • “Dr. Kastor has done a great service for patients and their families. In this lucid, comprehensive and well written book, the reader will gain great insight and understanding about electrical disturbances of the heart, which are remarkably common.”

      --Eric J. Topol, MD
      Professor of Cardiology,Case Western Reserve University

     

    “John Kastor has combined extensive clinical experience, great teaching skills, and superb writing to produce a really useful and needed book about heart rhythms. This will help patients and their families to better understand this complex and rapidly changing branch of cardiology.”

    Paul Kligfield, MD, Medical Director, Cardiac Health Center
    The New York-Presbyterian Hospital
    Professor of Medicine, Weill Medical College of Cornell University

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