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The electrocardiography is better known as an ECG, but is also called EKG which is the abbreviation for electrocardiogram. This technique is used to record the electrical impulses which immediately precede the contractions of the heart muscle. This method causes no discomfort to a patient and is often used for diagnosing heart disorders such as coronary heart disease, pericarditis or inflammation of the membrane around the heart, cardiomyopathy or heart muscle disease, arrhythmia and coronary thrombosis.
When using this technique doctors will connect electrodes to the chest, wrist and ankles that are connected to a recording machine. This machine will display the electrical activity in the heart as a trace on a rolling graph or screen. Using the electrocardiography any abnormalities are revealed to the doctor. This technique can be taken at a doctor's office, hospital or even at home and will provide your doctor with a 24 hour record of the patients heart activity from a tape recorder that is worn by the patient. Doctors can look at the printed graph to see if the heart chambers are contracting with complete regularity which indicates a normal rhythm. If the contractions of the lower heart chambers are extremely irregular this could indicate ventricular fibrillation. When the upper and lower heart chambers are beating independently this could indicate a complete heart blockage. If the upper heart chambers are beating fast and irregular, this can indicate arterial fibrillation.
The electrocardiography is a painless and quick procedure. The electrical impulses in the heart are recorded and amplified on a moving strip of paper which allows a doctor or analyze what is known as the pace maker of the heart which is the part that triggers each heart beat, the rate, rhythm and nerve conduction pathways of the heart. Small metal contacts or what are called electrodes are placed on the skin of the patient to measure the flow and direction of the electrical currents in the heart during each heart beat. Each of the electrodes are connected by a wire to a machine that will produce what is called a tracing for each electrode. This tracing represents a particular view or what is called lead of the heart's electrical patterns. In most cases any person who is suspected of having heart disease will have an ECG taken by their doctor. This will aid the doctor in identifying a number of heart problems such as abnormal heart rhythms, excessive thickening of the heart muscle or what is known as hypertrophy and results from high blood pressure, inadequate blood supply to the heart, inadequate oxygen supply to the heart, and a thin or absent heart muscle which has resulted because it has been replaced by non-muscular tissue.
An electrocardiography produces waves that are known as the P, Q, R, S, and T waves which gives each part of the ECG an alphabetical designation. As the heart beat begins with an impulse from the senatorial node which is also known as the main pace maker, the impulse will first activate the upper chambers of the heart or atria and produce the P wave. Then the electrical current will flow down to the lower chambers of the heart or ventricles producing the Q, R and S waves. As the electrical current spreads back over the ventricles in the opposite direction it will produce the T waves. Using this technique doctors can determine where in the heart abnormal rhythms start which allows them to begin to determine the cause.
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