Heart is a unique human vital organ, that is active all through the life, pumping blood and supplying vital oxygen to all the body and removing the waste products.
In the heart check up, the ECG plays a very important role in the diagnosis of Heart disease. It is a very important basic tool in the hands of Cardiologist.
Cardiologists and all physicians come across ECG almost on day to day basis.
Heart patient needs to do ECG as a primary test. And all physicians need to have a basic knowledge of the ECG.
The Electrocardiogram or the ECG is the graphic recording of the electrical activity of the heart from the surface by the leads.
Heart Contraction is tightly coordinated by a wave of depolarisation spreading through the muscular walls of the chambers. The depolarisation wave reflects movement of charge across cardiomyocyte membranes and is in effect an electrical current spreading through the heart. Following contraction, cardiac muscle returns to a resting state and this is associated with reversal of the movement of charge across the myocyte membranes, this second wave of electrical activity is termed cardiac repolarisation.
The leads of the ECG machine are designed to detect and record these two waves of cardiac electrical activity. The depolarisation and repolarisation waves spread through the heart in a highly predictable pattern and to understand the ECG readout, the pattern of spread of cardiac electrical activity needs to be understood.
Holter ECG is the continuous ECG recording for up to 48 hours. Normally, it is done for the 24 hours, to catch an event like arrhythmia.
Stress ECG is the Treadmill test TMT or Bicycle Ergometry, when the ECG is recorded during the exercise to screen for the Coronary artery disease.
Tress-echocardiography is the test when ECG recording and imaging of the heart is done during the exercise or stress.
Heart check up without ECG is incomplete and it is still the most important basic tool for the heart patients.