Tachycardia is a general term for a variety of different conditions that cause the heart to beat more than 100 times per minute. There are two general forms of tachycardia.

The first type is supraventricular tachycardia – a condition in which electrical impulses traveling through the heart are abnormal because of a cardiac problem somewhere above the lower chambers of the heart (ventricles). Common examples of supraventricular tachycardia include atrial fibrillation, atrial flutter, AV node reentry and Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome (WPW).

The second type is ventricular tachycardia, a condition in which the electrical impulse originates somewhere in the ventricles. It may degenerate into fatal arrhythmias such as ventricular flutter and ventricular fibrillation.

The symptoms of these different tachycardias vary widely. In emergency situations, treatment of tachycardia may be necessary with defibrillation or antiarrhythmic medications delivered through an IV. Long-term management often relies on medication. Some conditions may require a medical procedure such as catheter ablation or the insertion of an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD).