Electrocardiograph (ECG) You are probably familiar with this scene from a typical hospital television show: A patient is hooked up to a monitoring machine that shows voltage traces on a screen and makes the sound “... pip... pip... pip..... peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” as the patient goes into cardiac arrest. This type of machine (electro-cardiograph) is used to obtain an electrocardiogram (ECG). ECG is a graphical representation of the electrical activity of the heart during a cardiac cycle. To obtain a standard ECG, a patient is connected to the machine with three electrical leads (one to each wrist and to the left ankle) that continuously monitor the heart activity. For a detailed evaluation of the heart’s function, multiple leads are attached to the chest region. Here, we will talk only about a standard ECG. Each peak in the ECG is identified with a letter from P to T that corresponds to a specific electrical activity of the heart. The P-...
I am student. here, I am sharing life science knowledge.