We offer an easy check-in process and short wait times. Just walk-in or save your spot online. Select your location below to find the urgent care center nearest you. Louis, MO. Matters of the heart are the subject of emotional love songs and movie scripts. As painful as a "broken heart" may feel, matters of the physical heart are far more serious. That is why an abnormal ECG is a source of concern for both the patient and their physician. Fortunately, abnormal ECG interpretation is as much an art as it is a science.
What is an Abnormal ECG? Before you can begin to define what an abnormal ECG is, it is important to understand what an ECG does in the first place. Your heart runs on electrical impulses that cause it to fill with blood and them empty that blood into your circulatory system.
Doctors know how to read and interpret these lines, which gives them a sense of the overall state of the heart. Each heartbeat sends out an electrical impulse. These electrodes pick up this impulse and record the activity in a wave form on a graph. All of this happens in the blink of an eye, which is why an EKG is so important. An EKG can catch all of these tiny details and record them for a doctor to analyze.
This is not always a sign of an unhealthy heart. For instance, in , researchers found that competitive sports athletes regularly had abnormal EKG readings.
However, they still called for thorough screening to check for any other risk factors. The human heart typically beats at around 60— beats per minute. A heart that beats any faster or slower than this may indicate an underlying issue. A doctor will want to run additional tests to find the underlying cause. Although it may vary slightly between each person, each heart keeps a steady rhythm.
A person may physically feel changes in this rhythm, such as skipped heartbeats or feeling as though the heart is fluttering. An EKG will help doctors see how and where the heart is beating out of rhythm but will only be able to record the irregularity if it happens during the test. This gives doctors a better opportunity to catch the irregularity. An EKG gives doctors an idea of how hard the heart is working in each specific area.
An abnormal EKG result can be a sign that one region or section of the heart is larger or thicker than the others. A thickened heart could mean that the heart is working too hard to pump blood. This may be due to a congenital or acquired heart condition.
High Blood Pressure. Inadequate Blood and Oxygen Supply to the Heart. Heart Attacks. By CardiacDirect. Read More. More posts by CardiacDirect. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Wishlist 0. Continue Shopping.
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