Heart Beat symbol design element

Why cardiac monitoring can be vital important in quickly telling the doctors and nurses very important messages in what is going on with the patient’s heart and overall condition problem (Example A Myocardial Infarction or even to Cardiac Arrest).

Cardiac monitoring is a great way for doctors to understand a patients’ overall heart health, and can provide enough information to quickly and accurately helping the doctor or nurse as a diagnostic tool based on several details within a heart rhythm. While each arrhythmia monitoring device is a little different, these details are essential in diagnosing any underlying and potentially life-threatening events.

Your heart can have the best rhythm it can be in called Normal Sinus Rhythm which is a rhythm that is produced by the sinus node (SA node) that is the human pacemaker of the heart in out right upper atrium.  It starts a impulse (think of it as a message) that starts from the SA node and goes down the right atrium across to the left atrium (the upper chambers of the heart) with contiuing to send both impulses down to the bottom chambers of the heart which we call Ventricles creating the sound we all know the heart make called “lub dub”. This sound is creating when our heart valves open and close between the heart to allow complete fill up and release for the cardiac filling of our blood from top chambers to bottom and out of the heart to our circulation to send oxygenation out to all our tissues from feet to brain and back to lungs where our red blood cells carry the oxygen to tissues but take carbon dioxide back to the lungs for an exchange of new oxygen we breath in to exchange the carbon dioxide for new oxygen in the red blood cells and is send to the heart sent out back to our circulation to keep our body tissues oxygenated.  Without oxygenation that would be red blood cell starvation resulting into death for the human body.

There are times the SA node does not work for some reasons which causes the heart to start sending impulses from areas lower than where the SA node sits in the heart, in the upper right area of the heart.  Now some rhythms under the SA node can live a normal life with being checked up by a Cardiologist preferably or a Primary Care Doctor but know the Cardiologist will probably pick up before any other MD, if numerous years of experience.

Here is the basics to know about telemetry monitoring and your heart rate (also known as pulse):

1. Arrhythmias: Ambulatory heart monitors can be assigned for short-term use (24 to 72 hours) or for long-term use (up to 30 days or more) depending on what your doctor needs to know. Many cardiac monitoring devices record the ups and downs of your heartbeat to determine the presence of any irregularities in your rhythm that could be associated with an arrhythmia that’s new but possibly easily treatable or even curable to dangerous possibly or any underlying conditions.  There’s a device that we call holter monitor.  This device is what you wear for days and bring back to your doctor with leaving on 24hrs or  couple of days till you take off when the MD tells you too.  Than there is continuous telemetry monitoring in the hospital that records on the unit computer the patient usually is on.  This the MD reviews when you come back to his office with the holter monitor or the MD reviews daily or more when in the hospital.  This helps direct the MD in your care since it is a diagnostic tool for him or her.

2. Heart Rate: Your heart rate is the number of times your heart beats per unit of time, and can vary depending on your activities, sleep, and even what you eat. If it gets too low or too high when performing a specific activity, it’s essential that your doctor knows about it. A normal resting heart rate for adults ranges from 60 to 99 beats a minute.  The lower the better but usually not more than 50 if you have been in the heart rate or pulse of 50’s all your life due to being an athelete (some even in there 40’s) but if you have symptoms like dizzy, weakness, change in mental status, chest pain/discomfort, to indigestion that just won’t go away SEE THE MD; especially if the HR or pulse rate is new in a low rate that you are in.

3. P-wave analysis: On the telemetry monitor what MD’s, nurses and even technicians see are rhythm waves that is represented by names for each aspect of the wave we study.  The first wave if in normal sinus rhythm or some type of sinus rhythm we see what we call a p-wave represents the spread of electrical activity over the atrium, and normally lasts less than 0.11 seconds that derived from the SA node.  This is how sinus rhythms got their names.  An abnormally long p-wave occurs when it takes extra time for the electrical wave to reach the entire atrium.  This is the area right before that bigger wave we call QRS wave.   The prolongation for the PR interval signifies usually some type of AV block.  This occurs down at the valves between the upper chambers (atriums) and lower chambers (ventricles).  Ventricle rhythms means their is no impulse going through the atrium or we would see a atrium rhythm so now the ventricles take over to make a rhythm showing Ventricular Rhythms.  These are dangerous rhythms.

4. Morphology: This refers to the form of cardiac rhythms and how they differ depending on underlying conditions. The morphology of a heart rhythm can be observed as a series of deflections away from the baseline of an ECG, and can vary if you have any type of condition that could affect your heart  (Let’s say heart failure to even drugs like Cocaine which is famous for speeding the heart up commonly know for putting patients in atrial RVR; meaning atrial fibrillation but at a high heart rate in the atriums putting your pulse at a HR of 150 to 250 and can lead to a heart attack.

Cardiac and arrhythmia monitoring solutions means that you can start treatment much sooner. Your heart monitor provides your physician with data necessary for diagnoses for a wide range of populations including geriatric, diabetic and pediatric patients, all age groups.