Electrocardiograms (EKG) in Jacksonville
In Jacksonville, our medical team will use an electrocardiogram (EKG or ECG) to check for problems with the electrical activity of your heart. Your doctor may have ordered an EKG during a routine physical examination or may be using the test as a screening tool due to other indicators of a potential heart condition. Electrocardiograms take only a few minutes and are easy to perform at our office. Since the equipment used is very portable, the EKG system is also an excellent telemetry tool for a more continuous monitoring of the heart's activity, such as when you are hospitalized.
There are no health risks in taking an EKG, no electricity passes through your body from the machine and there is no danger of receiving an electrical shock. As an EKG machine checks for potential problems, it translates the heart's electrical activities into a line graph on paper. Your doctor will look at the rhythmic dips and spikes on the printout to determine the activity in different parts or sections of your heart. From start to finish, the complete exam usually takes 5 to 10 minutes to perform. If there is any reason for concern, your family physician make recommend establishing a baseline EKG for future comparisons.
The information obtained from an electrocardiogram can be used to both determine the presence or potential for a heart condition as well as to monitor how well you are responding to treatments. When a patient complains of chest pains or exhibits difficulty in breathing, our doctors often use an EKG to assess the current rhythm of the patient's heart, look for signs of a heart attack, look for evidence of a previous heart problem or identify a thickening of the left ventricular heart muscle. Since the results of a single EKG may appear normal when heart disease is present, your doctor may need to order other coronary tests as a precautionary measure.
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