Palpitations are a symptom defined as awareness of the heartbeat and are described by patients as a disagreeable sensation of pulsation or movement in the chest and/or adjacent areas.[7] Implicit in that awareness is a sense of unpleasantness which may be associated with discomfort, alarm, and less commonly pain. As this awareness causes the individual to mentally focus on their heartbeat, the nature of the heartbeat, both in terms of its perceived 'forcefulness' and its rate, is assimilated into the term. Therefore, the term is used to describe a patient's subjective perception of abnormal cardiac activity in a way that may be associated with a symptomatic cardiac arrhythmia. However, because palpitations are a symptom with a broad range of causes and underlying diseases, it does not have a rigorous and definable clinical correlate.