Who should be screened for Atrial Fibrillation

Atrial fibrillation is an irregularity of the heartbeat which can cause strokes and that's the major reason for wanting to screen for atrial fibrillation. If you have symptoms you will identify yourself but really the whole idea of screening is to try and identify those types of patients who are at higher risk of having a stroke. We know that the risk of stroke goes up depending on your risk factors, and we have a scoring system that allows us to determine who is at a higher risk. It therefore makes sense to screen patients who have got additional risk factors, anyone over the age of 65, anyone who's got high blood pressure, anyone who's known to have other types of heart problems such as coronary artery disease, anybody who has diabetes or anyone who has any other family history of heart problems. All patients in this category should certainly be screened. There is some concerns around screening the whole population and in the advent of the technologies that we have such as the wearable technologies this would become much easier to do and the main reason for doing this is to try and identified those patients in whom there is an increased risk of a stroke and trying to treat it at an earlier stage to prevent strokes.