24 hour monitor

[Peahenny]

Hello I read online somewhere today that a 24 hour monitor picks up chest pains..is this true and how does it do that please? Thank you

[Taviterry]

Your monitor is probably a type of portable electrocardiogram (ECG) that records electrical activity of the heart.

Natural electrical impulses help control the different parts of the heart. This keeps blood flowing the way it should. The monitor checks the rhythm of the heartbeats and records the strength and timing of the electrical impulses.

I was asked to keep a log of any physical discomfort and of any strenuous activity.

[mjames1]

Keep in mind I'm not medically trained, but from personal experience, the short answer is it might, but it might not.

Jim

[sandandkev]

You're supposed to write down any pains and what you were doing at time and how long lasted,they then can put that together with ecg monitor

[L8Again]

I am not aware of any heart monitor that can detect what a patient might be feeling at any given time. It is just recording the electrical activity of the heart.

My wife’s 14 day holter monitor had a button on it which allowed her to ‘signal’ a particular event or events. I suspect that this was just to place a marker on the ECG trace which suggested the need for a close look at this area of the recording by a qualified specialist. She logged any symptoms/times and submitted the log when the holter monitor was returned.

That said, the whole point of an ECG is rule out heart issues or detect an anomaly. Any diagnosis will be determined on the basis of what the clinician sees when looking at the ECG report along with the results from any other tests he/she has requested plus a consultation about symptoms etc with the patient.

[richard_jw]

If you mean a Holter monitor, it does not identify heard pains (e.g. angina). It does identify the different sorts of irregular heart rhythms (e.g. Atrial fibrillation) and measures maximum and minimum heart rates and the time of day they occur.

I was asked to identify any symptoms I suffered during the period I was wearing the monitor. I could either write down the date/time and what the symptom was (e.g. chest pain, palpitations etc.) or input it into a smartphone app.

The analysis of the output of the monitor is done by a technician and the time of your symptoms is matched up with the results from the monitor

[Qualipop]

It's like having a 24 hour ECG, you will probably be asked to write down when you have any pain so they can see what happened to your heart at that time. When you have an ECG at the doctor's it only lasts a few seconds so often misses any odd beats or anything that can cause pain. This runs constantly for 24 hours checking what your heart is doing

[bluemoon572]

It doesn't detect chest pain. The monitored person notes it on the diary but I know of a person who had ?silent ischemia changes seen in the ST segments of the rhythm strip during some physical activity and a subsequent workup showed that he had coronary artery blockages.

[mjames1]

To clarify my first post here, angina which often presents as chest pain, is often picked up on an ekg, but not always. In this sense a 24 hour monitor can sometimes pick up chest pain.

Jim

[Taviterry]

A postscript to the above. Today I had my copy of a letter summarising the results of my Holter wearing of January 13-14 and ECG results of February 11 and. It was dated February 19 and sent to my GP, who somehow was able to summarise the outcomes for me two days earlier! It mentioned that the Holter noted "very short episodes" of increased heart-beat (though my GP had referred to just one) but, a little frustratingly, did not say if these were linked to two deliberate attempts by me to push my body, including a four-hour walk that took in a long hill.