24 Hour Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring

A Holter monitor is a battery-operated portable device that measures and records your heart’s activity (ECG) continuously for 24 to 48 hours or longer depending on the type of monitoring used. The device is the size of a small camera. It has wires with silver dollar-sized electrodes that attach to your skin. The Holter monitor and other devices that record your ECG as you go about your daily activities are called ambulatory electrocardiograms. Wearing the monitor may tell your doctor: If your medicines are working. Why you have symptoms such as dizziness, faintness or the feeling that your heart is racing or skipping a beat. If your heart is getting enough oxygen to meet its needs.

A stress test, sometimes called a treadmill test or exercise test, helps a doctor find out how well your heart handles work. As your body works harder during the test, it requires more oxygen, so the heart must pump more blood. The test can show if the blood supply is reduced in the arteries that supply the heart. It also helps doctors know the kind and level of exercise appropriate for a patient. A person taking the test is hooked up to equipment to monitor the heart, walks slowly in place on a treadmill. Then the speed is increased for a faster pace and the treadmill is tilted to produce the effect of going up a small hill. Afterwards will sit or lie down to have their heart and blood pressure checked.

Echocardiography, also called an echo test or heart ultrasound,is a test that takes “moving pictures” of the heart with sound waves. An echo uses sound waves to create pictures of your heart’s chambers, valves, walls and the blood vessels (aorta, arteries, veins) attached to your heart. A probe called a transducer is passed over your chest. The probe produces sound waves that bounce off your heart and “echo” back to the probe. These waves are changed into pictures viewed on a video monitor. Your doctor may use an echo test to look at your heart’s structure and check how well your heart functions. The test helps your doctor find out: The size and shape of your heart, and the size, thickness and movement of your heart’s walls. How your heart moves. The heart’s pumping strength. If the heart valves are working correctly. If blood is leaking backwards through your heart valves (regurgitation). If the heart valves are too narrow (stenosis). If there is a tumor or infectious growth around your heart valves.

An electrocardiogram — abbreviated as EKG or ECG — is a test that measures the electrical activity of the heartbeat. With each beat, an electrical impulse (or “wave”) travels through the heart. This wave causes the muscle to squeeze and pump blood from the heart. A normal heartbeat on ECG will show the timing of the top and lower chambers. The right and left atria or upper chambers make the first wave called a “P wave" — following a flat line when the electrical impulse goes to the bottom chambers. The right and left bottom chambers or ventricles make the next wave called a “QRS complex." The final wave or “T wave” represents electrical recovery or return to a resting state for the ventricles. Why is it done? An ECG gives two major kinds of information. First, by measuring time intervals on the ECG, a doctor can determine how long the electrical wave takes to pass through the heart. Finding out how long a wave takes to travel from one part of the heart to the next shows if the electrical activity is normal or slow, fast or irregular. Second, by measuring the amount of electrical activity passing through the heart muscle, a cardiologist may be able to find out if parts of the heart are too large or are overworked.