24 - Hour Holter Monitoring

A highly advanced technique to record your heart activity, a Holter Monitor continuously captures your heart’s activity (ECG) for around 24-48 hours as per the requirements.

Abnormal heart rhythms or cardiac symptoms usually come and go, and it’s almost impossible to capture such activity in regular ECGs or EKGs. If your doctor suspects any such thing, it is possible he might recommend you for a 24-hour Holter Monitoring that helps in analyzing whether you have fast, slow or irregular heartbeats, termed as arrhythmias in medical language.

Precautions

While getting measured through a Holter monitor, you need to take certain precautions:

• Don’t bathe, swim or shower while wearing the monitor.
• Don’t conduct an X-ray while wearing the monitor.
• Keep distance from high-voltage areas, metal detectors, or large magnets.
• Keeping an accurate diary of your activities shown by your technician is a must.

 

Uses for Holter monitoring :

An EKG is a medical test that’s used to measure your heart rate and rhythm. It’s also used to look for other abnormalities that may affect normal heart function. During an EKG, electrodes are placed on your chest to check your heart’s rhythm. You may experience heart rhythm irregularities that don’t show up at the time the EKG is done because you’re only hooked up to the machine for a very brief amount of time.

Abnormal heart rhythms and other types of cardiac symptoms can come and go. Monitoring for a longer period of time is necessary to record these events. The Holter monitor lets your doctor see how your heart functions on a long-term basis. The recordings made by the monitor help your doctor determine if your heart is getting enough oxygen or if the electrical impulses in the heart are delayed or early. These irregular impulses may be referred to as arrhythmias or abnormal heart rhythms.