Saturday, December 3, 2011

Things You Need to Know About Heart Stress Tests

A large component of diagnosing disease involves testing, and plenty of people have had to get a test at one time or another. However, accurately determining heart issues and disease is still a difficult task even though there is high tech gadgets and equipments. One of these many tests is the cardiac stress test. This kind of test is usually administered by cardiologists to get a clear understanding of how well a person's heart will react to stress in a controlled setting. The normal scenarios involves an external items like physical activity, but stress can materialize via unique drugs. The intent is to disclose bad or abnormal blood flow to the heart. We will discuss several different types of cardiac stress tests in this article.
The treadmill stress test is viewed as a pretty common kind of cardiac stress test. The name implies the setting and general procedure for this process. Most of it depends on the person's circumstances and the magnitude of the treadmill test is to have the patient walk on the treadmill while their heart is hooked up to an EKG and monitored for its possible reactions. The EKG can reveal any possible changes that are due to the induced pressures of walking the treadmill. Frequently, the patient is upset because the treadmill requires you to walk at a brisk pace. That scenario obviously places a greater physical stress on the patient's heart and can be quite effective for revealing trouble areas.
The general stress test is a procedure that is not as hard as other types of stress tests like the nuclear stress test. During a basic test like a treadmill or standing bicycle test, the patient' s heart is monitored. This is done by using an EKG or ECG monitor. Then the patient walks in a normal manner on the treadmill. Gradually, the speed of the treadmill is boosted so that the demand on the heart goes up or the heart is under stress. All this time, a doctor is present as well as other health technicians, to perform the test and be present in the event of any immediate problems. Also, during this time, the patient's blood pressure and rate are observed.
Nuclear stress tests are designed to recreate an image of the heart as it operates under stressful conditions and radioactive isotopes are used to achieve this. As you may know, a stressed heart is more apt to reveal an abnormal situation in the body that is related to the heart or cardiovascular system. But it is also important for the doctor to capture images of the heart when it is at rest, too. Therefore, these images are produced with the aid of isotopes injected into the blood stream. Each type of cardiac stress test has its advantages and particular purpose. They serve to help doctors make the most accurate diagnosis possible. Consider the fact that there are optimum condition involving each that might change or effect the outcome of the diagnosis accuracy.

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