cardiac spasm

English translation: sudden abnormal contraction of a heart muscle.

11:04 Apr 1, 2012
English language (monolingual) [PRO]
Medical - Medical: Cardiology
English term or phrase: cardiac spasm
In this case, they were on my side. A poor old woman found me sleeping while she was out collecting firewood. Somehow she carted me to a German hospital near Hildesheim. For several days, I drifted in and out of consciousness. During a period of clarity, I heard talk about an epidemic of typhoid that was killing scores of women. Figuring I was among that ill-fated lot, I asked for pencil and paper in order to write my family in case I never saw them again.
But I was too weak to hold the pencil. I asked my roommate and the nurse for help, but both refused. The bigots thought I was Polish. It was the same kind of prejudice I’d witness forty years later with AIDS patients, “Let the Polish pig die,” they said disgustedly.
Such prejudice nearly killed me. Later that night I suffered a cardiac spasm and no one wanted to help the “Polish” girl.
Shirley Fan
Local time: 23:52
Selected answer:sudden abnormal contraction of a heart muscle.
Explanation:
See reference.
Selected response from:

Jack Doughty
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:52
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SUMMARY OF ALL EXPLANATIONS PROVIDED
5cardiac spasm
Michael Barnett
4sudden abnormal contraction of a heart muscle.
Jack Doughty


  

Answers


22 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5
sudden abnormal contraction of a heart muscle.


Explanation:
See reference.

Example sentence(s):
  • http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/sym/cardiac_spasm.htm#intro
Jack Doughty
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:52
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 16
Grading comment
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9 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 5/5
cardiac spasm


Explanation:
Hi Shirley,

I have left the English wording unchanged because the term is too ambiguous to permit anything more specific.

A cardiologist would not use this wording. The source speaker is obviously not a sophisticated healthcare professional. ;-)

Mr. Jack Doughty has made a suggestion which, though linguistically correct, is not likely an accurate description of what really happened.

The term heart spasm can really be used to apply to one of two distinct and unrelated phenomena. As Jack has described, it could mean a sudden abnormal contraction of the heart muscle. Such contractions occur all the time in normal people. Sometimes they arise from the atria of the heart, sometimes from the ventricles themselves. The locus of the abnormality can be easily discerned from an electrocardiogram. If these abnormal contractions are sustained, they may be perceived as palpitations. Occasionally they require treatment.

The other sort of heart spasm is actually a spasm of a coronary artery. This results in temporarily reduced oxygenation to the section of the heart serviced by that artery and may be perceived as chest pain. The patient may believe that he is having a heart attack. The technical name for this condition is "Prinzmetal's angina".

Given that the speaker thought that she had almost died, I suspect her heart spasm was the latter rather than the former.

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Note added at 16 hrs (2012-04-02 03:49:55 GMT)
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Hi again Shirley,

I had never before heard of strophanthin, but a quick review indicates that it is a digitalis-like drug, now likely obsolete. We sometimes use digitalis for congestive heart failure and some tachyarrhythmias. I found some references to the use of strophanthin in angina.

Curiously, its name came up in a Web site touting some junk science challenging the notion that myocardial infarction is caused by coronary obstruction, the medical equivalent of insisting that the world is really flat. (Actually, in Prinzmetal's angina there is no structural obstruction, just coronary spasm, producing a temporary pseudo-obstruction.)

That aside, it is hard to say from the text if the patient was being treated for angina, a tachyarrhythmia or congestive heart failure!

Let's just call it "heart spasm"! :-)

Michael Barnett
Local time: 11:52
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 4
Notes to answerer
Asker: Sorry, I should have given more context!But I don't konw it is so complex! Here is more context for it. Such prejudice nearly killed me. Later that night I suffered a cardiac spasm and no one wanted to help the “Polish” girl. My poor body, withered to a frightening seventy-five pounds, had no fight left in it. Doubled over in bed, I faded fast. Fortunately, the doctor on duty that night took his oath seriously. Before it was too late, he administered an injection of strophanthin. By morning, I felt more like myself than I had since departing from Lucima

Asker: I mean I didn't konw it is so complex! Sorry for the mistake!

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