Bigeminy is when a sinus beat is followed by an aberrant conduction pattern. Trigeminy is 2 sinus beats followed by ann aberrant conduction pattern.
Couplets are 2 aberrant conduction patterns in a row.
Triplets are 3 aberrant conduction patterns in a row.
I seem to have wired these two things in my brain wrong and I am trying to get them sorted out.
Aberrant Conduction is caused by something, treat the underlying cause and don't abolish perfusing rhythms.
NTG, NTG, NTG....
We had a practical lab day this past week and these are the things I have to work on.
Update(8/23/2012): This seems to be the most popular post I have on this blog, a lot of folks navigate here from googling "Bigeminy Couplets". Does this help explain things a bit? Please comment...
Just a quick terminology note:
ReplyDeleteBigeminy and trigeminy are patterns, like: ABABAB and AABAABAAB.
Couplets are when you have a pattern like: ABBA (and the BB-pair came early, or was a dancing queen).
Triplets are when you have a pattern like: ABBBA (and the BBB-triple came early).
Runs are 4+, like: ABBBBA or ABBBBA.
So you can have "bigeminal PACs", which won't necessarily conduct aberrantly. You could have "bigeminal PJCs" without aberrant conduction too. Hence, you can have couplet PACs or PJCs too (albeit rare).
You're right in that you'll most likely see bigeminy and trigeminy with PVCs (which certainly will have an aberrant conduction pattern) and couplet/triplet PVCs; but the other combinations certainly are possible.
Make sense?
I guess when I use the words "aberrant conduction pattern" I should say "non-sinus beat"
ReplyDeleteWould that be truthier?
Yes, aberrancy generally refers to slow/abnormal conduction thru the ventricles rather than "ectopy".
ReplyDelete