Vital signs simply check body temp, heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, etc. So what are tachy and brady? Tachy means fast, while brady means slow. So it's not difficult to identify tachy-cardia vs. brady-cardia, and tachy-pnea vs. brady-pnea.
Tachycardia is an abnormally rapid beating of the heart, defined as a resting heart rate of over 100 beats per minute.
It can have harmful effects in two ways. First, when the heart beats too rapidly, it performs inefficiently (since there is not enough time for the ventricles to fill completely), causing blood flow and blood pressure to diminish. Second, it increases the work of the heart, causing it to require more oxygen while also reducing the blood flow to the cardiac muscle tissue, increasing the risk of ischemia and resultantly infarction.
Tachycardia is a general symptomatic term that does not describe the cause of the rapid rate. Common causes are autonomic nervous system or endocrine system activity, hemodynamic responses, and various forms of cardiac arrhythmia.
Bradycardia, as applied in adult medicine, is defined as a heart rate of under 60 beats per minute, though it is seldom symptomatic until the rate drops below 50 beat/min [1]. It is also less commonly known as brachycardia. Trained athletes tend to have slow resting heart rates, and resting bradycardia in athletes should not be considered abnormal if the individual has no symptoms associated with it.
The term relative bradycardia is used to explain a heart rate that, while not technically below 60 beats per minute, is considered too slow for the individual's current medical condition.
This cardiac arrhythmia can be underlied by several causes, which are best divided into cardiac and non-cardiac causes. Non-cardiac causes are usually secondary, and can involve drug use or abuse; metabolic or endocrine issues, especially in the thyroid; an electrolyte imbalance; neurologic factors; autonomic reflexes; situational factors such as prolonged bed rest; and autoimmunity. Cardiac causes include acute or chronic ischemic heart disease, vascular heart disease, valvular heart disease, or degenerative primary electrical disease. Ultimately, the causes act by three mechanisms: depressed automaticity of the heart, conduction block, or escape pacemakers and rhythms.
In medicine, hyperventilation (or hyperpnea) is the state of breathing faster or deeper (hyper) than necessary, and thereby reducing the carbon dioxide concentration of the blood below normal. This causes various symptoms such as numbness or tingling in the hands, feet and lips, lightheadedness, dizziness, headache, chest pain, slurred speech and sometimes fainting.
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| ICD-10 | R06.0 |
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| ICD-9 | 786.06 |
| OMIM | {{{OMIM}}} |
| MedlinePlus | {{{MedlinePlus}}} |
| eMedicine | {{{eMedicineSubj}}}/{{{eMedicineTopic}}} |
| DiseasesDB | {{{DiseasesDB}}} |
The related symptom tachypnea (or "tachypnoea") (Greek: "rapid breathing") is characterized by rapid breathing and is not identical with hyperventilation - tachypnea may be necessary for a sufficient gas-exchange of the body, for example after exercise, in which case it is not hyperventilation.
Bradypnea refers to an abnormally slow breathing rate. The rate at which bradypnea is diagnosed depends upon the age of the patient (see Respiratory rate.)
One patient who had pulmonary embolus also had tachypnea. Now that is because a pulmonary embolus patient would have a problem breathing, so he has to make up for the reduced intake of oxygen by breathing more rapidly.
