1. The Heart and Circulatory System Common Diagnostic Procedures Corinne E Preis

2. The State of the Heart With more and more Americans facing any number of different heart related problems, many of the common diagnostic tests and procedures are becoming household terms. 10,000s of patients come to the emergency room every year complaining of chest pain or tightness and irregular heartbeats, along with breathing difficulty. Most physicians will order numerous tests to get a picture of what is going on inside.

3. Echocardiography This is one of the least invasive diagnostic tests performed. An echocardiography (often just called and ECHO) provides a visual reference of the internal cardiac structures as well as the valves. An echocardiogram is a test that uses sound waves to create a moving picture of the heart. A transducer will pick up the echoes of the sound waves and transmit them as electrical impulses. The echocardiography machine converts these impulses into moving pictures of the heart. The Doppler probe records the motion of the blood through the heart.

4. The ECHO can be used to identify and diagnose many ailments such as : Heart murmurs Abnormal heart valves The pumping function of the heart for people with heart failure Damage to the heart muscle in patients who have had heart attacks

5. Cardiac Scan While similar to the echocardiography, the cardiac scan performed with the patient receiving a small amount of radioactive thallium is a bit more invasive. A special camera called an gamma scintillation camera scans the patient after they have received an intravenous injection of thallium. The parts of the heart are image by the camera picking up the gamma rays emitted from the internal thallium.

6. Only the parts of the heart that have good blood flow will be imaged, because the thallium can not reach areas that have poor perfusion. This testis used to find the area of the heart that may have been damaged during a previous heart attack. It is also a is a good test to find blockage in the coronary arteries, also called ischemia.

7. Stress Testing This is a very common test, sometimes called a treadmill or exercise test, that is used in conjunction with the previous tests. It is often used to assess the cause for a patient complaint such as chest pain or shortness of breath on exertion. The patient with have electrodes placed on the chest to measure the heart’s electrical activity and a blood pressure cuff will also be used to monitor the patient’s blood pressure throughout the test.

8. The patient then is asked to perform increasing levels of exercise, either on a treadmill or bicycle. The test usually last anywhere from 3to 15 minutes. If there are any abnormal findings on the electrocardiogram, the physician will stop the test. Many times, a patient being discharged from the hospital after a heart attack will be given a low level stress test. It is also used to evaluate the effectiveness of a heart treatment.

9. Cardiovascular Diagnostics There are many different tests used to determine the cause of common complaints of chest pain and shortness of breath. Most are used in conjunction with one another so that a treating physician is able to fully understand what is occurring internally. These technologies are changing rapidly and due to the ever increasing number of people affected, will continue to evolve so that one day there may be one test to do the job of all of these.