Hypnosis has been used to
operate on atrial fibrillation, a heart condition, for the first
time in Italy.
Hypnosis was used for analgesic or painkilling purposes,
doctors said.
Doctor Luca Bacino used it in the electrophysiological room
of the San Paolo Hospital in the northwestern city of Savona.
Bacino has introduced hypnosis into clinical practice thanks
to collaboration with the centre for arrhythmology of the
Cardinal Massaia Hospital in Asti, north of Turin.
Bacino did so after frequenting the Italian school of
hypnosis, CIICS, in Turin.
Thursday's operation was an ablation of atrial fibrillation.
It regularly takes over three hours and local and systemic
drug polytherapy is usually required for analgesic and
anaesthetic purposes to be able to carry out the op.
Bacino said "thanks to hypnosis during the intervention it is
possible to drastically reduce the use of anaesthetic and
analgesic drugs and make the procedure even more tolerated".
He said "clinical hypnosis is still not very well known today
and not very much applied in the medical field and particularly
during cardiac procedures with an analgesic purpose, but its
potential is extraordinary, in that you can reduce to a minimum
the use of conventional drugs and furthermore the procedure is
made much more tolerable.
"Hypnosis in electrophysiology is without doubt a novelty at
an international level and its ever more extensive use will be
able to drastically improve the daily work of the intervening
cardiologist.
Atrial fibrillation ablation is a procedure used to treat an
irregular heart rhythm (arrhythmia) that starts in the heart's
upper chambers (atria). It's a type of cardiac ablation, which
works by scarring or destroying tissue in your heart to disrupt
faulty electrical signals causing the arrhythmia.
Atrial fibrillation ablation may be used if medications or
other interventions to control an irregular heart rhythm don't
work. Rarely, it's the first choice of treatment for atrial
fibrillation.
Treatment for atrial fibrillation usually improves your
symptoms, such as fatigue and shortness of breath. Without
treatment, atrial fibrillation tends to get worse over time.
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