The electrical cardioversión can be carried out from the outside of the body or from within of the same one.

The external cardioversión is carried out in general in an emergency situation, and for it a defibrillator is used. The defibrillator has two palettes to transmit the electric current, they put themselves in the breast in a situation of cardiac arrhythmia, to the sides of the heart and the discharge is applied to try that the cardiac frequency returns to a normal rhythm.

Sometimes also this intervention is realized without emergency situation, in this case it is necessary to do previously a study as an ecocardiograma transesofágico, to be able to diagnose if there are blood clots in the heart.

It usually recommend an anticoagulant treatment and a sedation before the intervention. The anticoagulant treatment is supported usually later.

The external cardioversión is carried out in ear arrhythmias.

Nowadays there are portable automatic defibrillators that they go off themselves (before the presence of arrhythmias) and only there is necessary a personnel trained (paramedic) for his use.

The internal cardioversión realizes by means of a defibrillator cardioversor implantable (DCI) who has a generator of pulses and a few electrodes.

The pulses generator is implanted under the skin, as if it was a pacemaker. The electrodes get connected between the generator and the heart. When for some cause the heart presents an arrhythmia and the defibrillator perceives it and realizes an electrical discharge, to return to a normal cardiac rhythm. The desfribrilador has a battery that lasts a few years.

The internal cardioversión is used for ventricular arrhythmias that are more serious they produce sudden death

The cardioversión with medicines antiarrítmicos realizes by means of his capture oral route or across an intravenous route. For it it can be late hours or days his efficacy, and it is necessary to control as the cardiac rhythm of periodic form goes. Almost always it collaborates to a therapy with anticoagulants.