Can Atrial Fibrillation cause heart failure

Heart failure is a term used for when the heart does not pump as efficiently as it should. Now atrial fibrillation makes the heart pump irregularly and that can cause impairment of the heart function or heart failure. So heart failure can be caused by atrial fibrillation or those with known heart failure for other reasons such as previous heart attack or other reasons. The atrial fibrillation, the irregular beating of the heart can exacerbate the heart failure. It's very important in heart failure that your heart rhythm is optimised, the heart's not left to go too fast or if deemed appropriate your atrial fibrillation is managed in a way that you try and achieve normal rhythm. Given that the evidence for atrial fibrillation causing exacerbating heart failure is increasing there are some people where it's actually the atrial fibrillation which is the cause of their heart failure and hence even more important to get rid of the atrial fibrillation which can then cause their heart function to improve or even normalise.