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Bradycardia
Make it clearer
Bradycardia means the heart beats slowly: fewer than 60 beats per minute. In sinus bradycardia the beat also starts where it is supposed to start, in the sinus node, a group of cells that generates the heart's electrical impulse. The heart's own metronome is still keeping time, just more slowly.
That sinoatrial node is the default pacemaker, meaning the one in charge as long as nothing interferes with it. There are factors from inside and from outside the heart that can compromise its integrity, and then the impulse fails: either it never forms at the node, or it forms and cannot get through farther down the line.
Finding sinus bradycardia does not mean the same thing in everyone. In many healthy adults it turns up by chance, as an incidental finding. In older people, however, it may be signaling that the sinus node is no longer healthy.
In brief
Sinus bradycardia is a heart rhythm that starts normally in the sinus node and runs at fewer than 60 beats per minute.
The heart's own metronome is still keeping time, just more slowly.
The sinoatrial node is the default pacemaker; a multitude of intrinsic and extrinsic factors may compromise its integrity and cause failure of impulse formation at the node or of conduction farther down.
In many healthy adults it is an incidental finding; in older people, however, it can point to a diseased sinus node.
Sources (1)
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, StatPearls PublishingSinus Bradycardia, StatPearlsPublished
This page explains the topic in general terms; it does not tell anyone what treatment to follow.
Updated