Heart Rate

Ever since she was 5, Ann Zavitsanos has remembered fainting. She has blacked out on ice-skating rinks, in dentists' offices, at home. She faints regularly, unpredictably, perhaps four times every year. At Lankenau Hospital, she told a nurse that she always fainted when she got a shot. And so, because doctors wanted to observe her fainting symptoms, the nurse slid a needle into her arm, under her taut, broken, translucent skin. Nothing happened. Her fear of injections had not triggered the abnormal reflex that made her faint, the conspiracy between her brain and her heart.

Jesper Parnevik, Europe's top player in the Ryder Cup, withdrew from the World Golf Championship event in Sotogrande, Spain, because of heart problems and probably won't play the rest of the year. His mother, Gertis, said her 34-year-old son was experiencing pain and had an irregular heart beat. She said his sleep had been affected and said he keeps a machine to check his heart rate. Parnevik, known for wearing the bill of his cap flipped up, was 3-1-1 in the Ryder Cup. His condition most likely will keep him from the Million Dollar Challenge in South Africa next month.

BITING ANALYSIS Since tomorrow is Halloween, we address the question of whether there really are such things as vampires. Eighteenth-century sightings frequently included such evidence as unearthed corpses that seemingly had fattened, that had florid faces and blood coming from the mouth, and that had moved and emitted sounds. In fact, corpses do all those things - but they're the result of decomposition, not supernatural forces, reports Natural History magazine. ALZHEIMER'S FINDING There's encouraging news on Alzheimer's disease: Scientists at the University of Florida have discovered that victims' brains have unusually high levels of receptors for a substance called insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF- 1)

A Common Pleas judge has dismissed murder charges against an Upper Darby man who the prosecution contends "scared to death" a taxi driver on July 27. "At best," said Common Pleas Judge Michael Stiles this week, Vincent Romano, 39, might be found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for causing John Fuscellaro, 49, of 9th Street near Shunk, to suffer a fatal heart attack. The judge left that charge stand against Romano. Defense attorney A. Charles Peruto Jr. had challenged a Municipal Court ruling ordering Romano to stand trial on charges of deliberately killing Fuscellaro.

A study of pacemakers installed in Philadelphia hospitals in 1983 shows that 20 percent were implanted unnecessarily. In another 36 percent of cases, researchers lacked adequate information to make a judgment on whether the pacemakers were required, either because confirming tests were never performed or because results were not properly charted. A pacemaker is an electric device that works like a spark plug, putting out an electrical charge that stimulates the heart to work at a prescribed rate.

The mother of a 10-year-old girl who died after a virus attacked her heart has filed suit against Memorial Hospital of Burlington County, contending that either misdiagnoses by nurses or slow treatment led to the child's death. The suit, filed Thursday in Burlington County Superior Court in Mount Holly, outlined this scenario: On her 10th birthday, Willyonna Greene, had returned home about 3 p.m., and complained of chest pain. Her mother, Geraldine Greene, told her to lie down.

Tiny Angela Lakeberg's isolette with an overhead warmer looks like all the others in the intensive-care unit. The 8-week-old girl is one of 17 children receiving 24-hour care for complex heart conditions at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "She doesn't look any different" from the others, said Barbara Cornell, head nurse in the unit. Many cases are just as severe as Angela's. The infant was surgically separated from her conjoined twin, Amy, on Friday. Amy died during the surgery.

The 49-year-old South Philadelphia taxi driver died of a heart attack, but the prosecutor said he "was scared to death" by a driver who had leased a cab from him. Assistant District Attorney Brian McMonagle said the death of John Fuscellaro, of 9th Street near Shunk, was murder. He said Vincent Romano, 39, of Upper Darby, "caused this man's death" on July 27 by threatening him with a baseball bat during an argument over the leased cab on Broad Street near Federal. The prosecutor said when Romano began shouting at Fuscellaro, he was aware that the victim was suffering from a bad heart.

If there's such a thing as a "mild" heart attack, the one Frank Sinatra suffered yesterday was it. Hospital officials described the incident that put the singer back into the hospital yesterday as an "uncomplicated" heart attack. That means the attack is not associated with more serious heart failure, at least for now. "It means that he has coronary artery disease," said Dr. Irv Herling, a cardiologist and associate professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center.

At most concerts, you can tell when a band's set is about to end: Songs grow longer and more dynamic, tempos slow as if seizing on the last chance to stretch the evening out. But if you'd shown up a few minutes late to M83's show at the Electric Factory on Wednesday, you might have cast a worried glance at the time on your ticket. Nearly every song in their hour-plus set sounded like a set-closer, reflecting leader Anthony Gonzales' penchant for playing every song as if it might be his last.