A resting electrocardiogram at Dublin Health Screening
An electrocardiogram or ‘ECG’ records the electrical activity of the heart. The heart produces tiny electrical impulses which spread through the heart muscle to make the heart contract. These impulses can be detected by the ECG machine. You may have an ECG to help find the cause of symptoms such as palpitations or chest pain. It is done as part of routine tests, for example, before you have an operation and as part of our routine heath screen at Dublin Health screen.
The ECG test is painless and harmless. (The ECG machine records electrical impulses coming from your body – it does not put any electricity into your body.)
How is it done?
Small metal electrodes are stuck onto your arms, legs and chest. Wires from the electrodes are connected to the ECG machine. The machine detects and amplifies the electrical impulses that occur each heartbeat and records them onto a paper or computer. A few heartbeats are recorded from different sets of electrodes. The test takes about five minutes to do.
What does an ECG show?
The electrodes on the different parts of the body detect electrical impulses coming from different directions within the heart. There are normal patterns for each electrode. Various heart disorders produce abnormal patterns. The heart disorders that can be detected include:
- Abnormal heart rhythms. If the heart rate is very fast, very slow, or irregular. There are various types of irregular heart rhythm with characteristic ECG patterns.
- A heart attack, and if it was recent or some time ago. A heart attack causes damage to heart muscle, and heals with scar tissue. These can be detected by abnormal ECG patterns.
- An enlarged heart. Basically this causes bigger impulses than normal.
The above is the computer analysing ECG used at the Dublin Health screen 4 Fitzwilliam Square. Below listed is a summary of the ability of our ECG machines. All are linked directly to our health one program and are digitally stored on our in-house servers. They are dual analysed by the server system and our doctors. Any irregular strips our doctors are not happy with are E mailed for peer cardiology review. An exercise in house stress test may or not be advised at this stage.
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- Offers all the features of the CT8000P excluding on-screen tracing preview
- Equipped to provide paperless ECG options when combined with Archimed Passport Software
- 12 Channel high quality interpretive ECG with LCD screen for menu navigation and alpha-numeric keyboard
- High quality adult and paediatric interpretive software
- Easy selection of traces from 12 x 1, 6 x 2 or the popular 4 x 3 plus rhythm strip on a one-page report
- On-screen lead test and lead off indication
- One touch automatic or instant real time operation
- High quality digital filters for clear traces (mains, baseline and muscle tremor)
- Internal memory for up to 45 stored ECG records
- All parameters including filters are easily programmed through the on-screen menu for a one touch ECG
- Dedicated one touch keys for storing, printing and transmitting