Read about the latest news on ECG / EKG Machines

Most of us associate having an EKG test with a frantic trip the emergency room, or lying flat on our back in our doctor’s or cardiologist’s office having a diagnostic procedure. But you can have an EKG stress test while you are at home or out and about doing your normal activities.

This type of EKG is called an ambulatory EKG, or more commonly a Holter monitor, after its inventor Dr. Norman J. Holter. A Holter monitor is a device which is designed to be worn for an extended period of time, from 24 hours up to a month. Like a standard EKG machine, it uses electrodes to record the electrical activity of the heart, though it may use a smaller number of electrodes for data capture, even as few as three.

Unlike a normal EKG test, however, the Holter monitor is designed to allow doctors to observe and diagnose conditions which may be difficult to observe using a normal EKG. For example, a patient may having occasional arrhythmia’s. The chance of catching the patient during that time, at a facility equipped to perform an EKG, setting up the EKG machine, and catching the arrhythmia while it is happening is so small as to be nonexistent.

In contrast, if a patient is wearing an ambulatory EKG or Holter monitor, the instant recording of data is only the push of a button away. For example, patients wearing this cardiac monitor are instructed to start the device recording any time they feel a symptom of what is expected may be a cardiac event. Many patients are also instructed to keep a journal, recording any medically significant information, including date and time of experiencing symptoms, symptoms experienced, activity at time of symptom onset, duration of symptoms, etc. Not only do you then have subjective information, but you have the objective record of the patient’s heart’s electrical activity while symptomatic.

This can provide clinical data useful in diagnosing—and ruling out—a variety of cardiac conditions, including:

* Atrial fibrillation
* Multifocal atrial tachycardia
* Paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia
* Ventricular tachycardia
* Bradycardia

Holter monitors are also used to observe the way the heart reacts to normal every day activity and stress, or as a more thorough assessment of heart functioning.