Bradycardia Treatment - Coursework Example

Return to Work Formula after Bradycardia Sick Leave When you have a heartbeat which is between 60 and 100 in minute, then you have a normal heartbeat. Bradycardia is when you have an abnormally slow heartbeat which is less than 60 beats in a minute. You can have a slow heart beat but be healthy or it may be an indicator of a problem with the electrical system of the heart. Other people may have slow heartbeats and do not have any health problem. It sometimes shows a sing of being fit. Often athletes and young adults have heartbeat less than 60 beats in a minute. On the other hand bradycardia is a pointer to the problem with the electrical system of the heart. It may be that there is a disruption of the electrical paths of the heart or the pacemaker is having a problem. In other cases where bradycardia is severe, the beats of the heart go so low that the heart is not able to circulate the blood to all parts of the body. This can be risky health wise. At the age of 65 you will find there is a likelihood of developing very low heartbeats that medical attentions must be sought (MEE 2012: 89). According to CAMACHO (2011: 229) what causes bradycardia is anything that upsets the electrical impulses that are responsible in controlling the pumping action of the heart. There are several things that can cause the interruption of the electrical system. These include: Heart attack and heat diseases can also cause the problem. High blood pressure and worn out tissues of the heart may interfere with the electrical system. A person may be born with heart defects or the tissues get infections when growing. You can develop complication while undergoing heart surgery Electrical impulses are controlled by mineral substance in the blood. If they are imbalanced in some way they can cause slowness of the electrical impulse. Rheumatic fever may affect the heart tissues and cause the slowness in heartbeat. The building up ions in the organs involved in blood circulation (hemochromatosis) may also cause sluggishness of the heart. Medication may include using the drugs which are the treatment of other heart rhythm conditions drugs used to treat hypertension and psychosis (CAMACHO 2011: 225) The heart is composed of four chambers, the lower two chambers and the upper two chambers, which are ventricles and aria respectively. The sinus node which is a natural pacemaker controls the rhythm of the heart. It is located in the right atrium. In order to initiate the heartbeat, the sinus node produces some electrical impulses. Electrical impulses are pass across the atria from the sinus node, which causes the atria contracting pumping the blood towards the ventricles. The impulses will then arrive to cells in the heart which are called atrio-ventricular node. From this point the signal is sent to special cells. The cells then send the signal through a left branch which serves the left ventricle down to a right branch which serves the right ventricle. When these impulses pass through these branches there is contraction that occurs which causes the pumping of the blood. From the right ventricles, the de-oxygenated blood flow to the lungs, and then flow to the other parts of the body. When these signals are blocked on the way or interfered with, then bradycardia then occurs. When a person experiences bradycardia, they start feeling light headed or they feel dizzy. They sometimes suffer shortness of breath and they find it harder to carry out any exercise. The patient may not be able to concentrate or they feel confused and tired. They also have pain in the chest and feel that their heart is palpitating. When the heart rate affects the blood pressure, the patient may faint. Symptoms in other people are mild that they even think that they do not suffer from anything. They think they are suffering because of getting old. It is recommended to everybody should take to take your pulse regularly. Should you find the heartbeat is uneven, then consult your doctor Doctors can diagnose bradycardia by doing electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG). They may also diagnose by carrying out physical exam or asking questions about your health in the past and about the history of your family. To measure the electrical signals controlling he heart rhythm, doctors use EKG. An EKG may not tell you the exact condition of your heart rhythm. This is because bradycardia comes and disappears. Therefore the test may actually give you a positive result if you are having bradycardia during the testing .it is therefore advised you carry the electrocardiogram to monitor the hearth events during your day to day activities. By carrying out blood tests, doctors try to find out if there are other problems which may be causing the slowness of the heartbeat. (MCCLAIN & BUCHMAN 2011: 126). Treatment varies from one person to the other depending on the cause and also the symptoms. When there are no symptoms, then there is no medication. To the people whose electrical system of their hearts causes their heartbeats to be very slow, a pacemaker is recommended. This is a device which is implanted under your skin and is responsible to correct the slow heart rate. In most cases, people who are above 65 years of age are given this type of treatment. If the bradycardia is caused by other medical problems such as imbalance of electrolyte or hypothyroidism, treating of those problems, will cure the heart complication. Other forms of bradycardia may be caused by the use of some medicine. In this case, doctors may adjust the dosage or stop the prescription completely. If the patient, cannot stop the medication a pacemaker is recommended. In severe cases of bradycardia, problems such as fainting, seizures, or death may occur if the complication is not treated. The aim of treating bradycardia is to increase the heartbeat rate in order to supply sufficient blood to all parts of your body. Mostly, bradycardia occurs because of some other heart conditions. It is necessary to improve the health of your heart. Control your cholesterol intake, high salt diet, and high fat diet. Exercise regularly with recommendations from your physician. This will reduce blood pressure. Those who are smokers should quit smoking. When you faint, have shortness of breath, or chest pains, you should get an emergency help. When you have pacemakers, you must take great care when you are near strong electrical or magnetic fields. Machines such as magnetic wands or MRI which are used in airports should be far from the patient. Doctors always give the right precautions to take depending on the type of the pacemaker you have. You always need to call the doctor if feel that the device is not functioning right. This when you feel the heartbeat is slow or it is very fast, when you feed that you might faint or you experience the shortness of breath The patient should be protected for discrimination, according to United Kingdom Human Rights Act, the person returning to work from being sick should be given an equal opportunity to make his or her life the way they want it to be. It also clearly outlines that this person should have his or her need accommodated without being discriminated due to the sickness they have been going through. Basing on prohibited grounds, an employee can face discrimination at work. With discrimination, at work, there cannot be equity at the place of work. This means that the patient cannot have equal opportunities with the rest. Discrimination at work may happen on planning or sometimes it may happen inadvertently. Therefore the company must have a clear policy that will guide how the return to work formula should be. There is a legal principle that directs an employer to recognize and change any procedure, expectation, practice, or rule that may discriminate any of the employees. This principle is called duty to accommodate. Basic need of the employee should be there at the place of work to increase the productivity or perform to their best. The duty to accommodate is not limited to the employee only but it should it strike the balance between the employee’s side and the employer’s side. There is a right to privacy that a company should follow when planning the employee comeback from illness. In some cases employers require employees to give details on their medical conditions. There is an extent to which the employee can go in requesting the employee’s sickness details. Furthermore, the information collected from the patient’s medical conditions should be private and confidential, that is it should remain in the office and not to be shared with any other person For a company to succeed In bringing back an employee from illness absence a return to work formula should be used as a tool to help them return to their productive status as they were before the current absence. Some employees can be productive in the company while they are recovering. Therefore, return to work is significant to both the company and the employee recovery process. This plan has the priority to bring back the employee to the position they were before they got sick. In this case, a sales person can return to his routine sales work, workshops, and be with the other salesmen. In some other cases, full return may not be possible and therefore the employer should make some few adjustments in the company. The job may be modified in order to accommodate the current weaknesses of the employee. The employee may be assigned a different type of work in the same department of the company. If this cannot work, the employee can also be given a similar job but in a different department (HILL etal 2010: 123). An effective return to work plan should meet some of the following points. Firstly, the employee has the objective of returning fully to the former position of production he or she was before getting sick, or it should help an employee to start a new type of work if returning to the former work proofs difficult. The plan should also put into consideration the limitations the employee has in performing his or her duties and they should be progressively adjusted as the employee fully recovers and resume to the former position fully. All this objectives should be an obligation to the employer, the employee, the manager, and the co-workers. This plan should also have the time limits to which its objectives measure the progress of the employee recovery. It is necessary to have the starting date and the last date. All the time frames and employers expectations should put into consideration the ability of the employee. In the plan there should be days and dates recorded that an employee will not take part to go for medical checkups. The bulk of the work should be reasonable depending on the progressive recovery of the employee In conclusion, if the person have been the sales person has been away from work for quite some time, returning to work may be haunting. Therefore the manufacturing company should have a proper return to work plan to assist the salesperson to resume to his or her work. The employee may be productive to the company while recovering. Working may help the employee to quicker recovery. For the patient recovering from bradycardia, he or she should only spend time in design room with design engineers but visit regularly to the rooms where the equipment are made. Patients with pacemakers are advised to avoid areas where there are large electric fields or magnetic fields. Therefore, the work of this person may be adjusted to be the same but on other capacities like finding markets to other world places. There is another alternative that this employee may be given another job in a different department of the company, for the time that he or she may take to recover. A company that takes good care of its employees motivates them and they become highly productive. Therefore a proper return to work plan is one of the motivating factors that a company use to push the production of the employees to the mark. References CAMACHO, A. A., & BIAZZONO, L. (1995). Sinus bradycardia in a Collie dog with ivermectin toxicosis. Brazilian Journal of Veterinary Research and Animal Science. 32, 229-31. HILL, W. H., HILL, A. F., & HILL, A. E. (1963). Antonio Stradivari, his life and work, 1644-1737. New York, Dover Publications. HOEYOUNG KIM, CHAN-HYUN YOUN, DONG-HYUN KIM, HYEWON SONG, & EUN-BO SHIM. (2009). Adaptive Workflow-Policy Based Management Scheme for Advanced Heart Disease Identification. 545-549. MCCLAIN, G. R., & BUCHMAN, M. (2011). After the diagnosis: how patients react and how to help them cope. Clifton Park, N.Y., Delmar. MEE, C. L. (1996). Bradicardia. Nursing. Edición Española (Barcelona). 14, 7. PORTA, A., BASELLI, G., GUZZETTI, S., PAGANI, M., MALLIANI, A., & CERUTTI, S. (2000). Prediction of short cardiovascular variability signals based on conditional distribution. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. 47, 1555-1564. Read More