If you didn’t know this already, your whole body runs on, partly, electrical energy. This is why where are a number of fun experiments that you can try with your body that will result in a display of electrical energy – such is the case of that test where you rub a balloon on your hair and then it pulls your hair up.
As such, there is a test that will check the electrical activity of your heart, in order to make sure that your heart is working properly. This test is called the electrocardiogram (ECG) and it is incredibly popular. It is translated as lines on a paper, that show the waves of your heart.
The heart is pretty much like a muscle, one that keeps on working on a daily basis to keep you going, or else you would die. It is made up of four chambers, and these four chambers work with each other in a normal electrical system in order to keep your heart pumping blood to your body.
The exam doesn’t only check the electrical activity of your heart. It is possible to find possible causes of future heart attacks with it, it is possible to identify causes of unexplained chest pain and a lot more. It is even possible to find the cause of some symptoms that can be causing or that will eventually cause heart disease; symptoms such as shortness of breath, fainting and dizziness.
There are, of course, a lot more advantages to an electrocardiogram, but they are so many that we could write a whole article about them, so we are not going to elaborate too much on that. All you need to know is that it is an incredible procedure that has saved a lot of lives since it was invented, and it will keep on saving a lot more.
An electrocardiogram might be performed as a part of a simple physical examination, and the equipment used is most likely portable and the test can actually be done pretty much everywhere. In the hospital, some people are actually constantly monitored by an ECG system in order to guarantee that they are alright.
During an ECG, areas of the patients arms and legs can be cleaned and shaved in order to provide a clear and smooth surface for the discs of the ECG to be placed on the body. Some special pads can be placed on the skin of the patient in order to improve the conductivity of the electricity and provide better results. Then ,several electrodes are placed on the patient’s body, and they will then proceed to record the heart activity on paper. The electrodes themselves might feel cold, and when takes off they might pull the patients skill a little bit, but they will not cause any damage.
A lot of people refer to an electrocardiogram (ECG) with the abbreviation EKG. This can be confusing and, sometimes, it can even confuse people and trick them into thinking that these are two separate exams when, in reality, they are exactly the same thing.
Electrocardiogram is the English word that refers to this test, which originally came from Germany. The German word for it is elektrokardiogramm (EKG) hence, the “K” in the middle of the abbreviation. The exam is exactly the same thing, and the only difference there is between them is the language in which the word is.
The reason that people decide to refer to the exam as EKG is because there are a lot of exams in medicine, and some of them might actually end up sounding alike. In order to avoid medical mistakes and worrying patients that try to study what they have into thinking they have stuff they don’t, people use EKG instead of ECG, because it could otherwise be confused with the abbreviation of electroencephalogram (EEG), which is an exam that measures the electrical waves of the brain, and not of the heart.
The procedure itself is painless and noninvasive and, as said, it can be over pretty quickly. The time taken to set up the machine and the electrodes on the body of the patient shouldn’t be too long at all, and there are actually no risks attached to the exam itself. This is an incredibly safe test and most people should have absolutely no reason not to have an ECG or EKG.
It is, however, possible to get inconclusive results from the test, since there are a variety of factors than can affect the results of the test. These factors include exercising before the test, having the electrodes attached improperly, moving too much during the test or even just being very anxious or nervous during the test. Due to these factors and others such as false results (an ECG may look normal even when things aren’t normal) the ECG isn’t 100% reliable, and it should always be done and examined along with other types of test and past medical history and physical examination.
To summarize, an electrocardiogram is an exam that is going to measure and examine the electrical waves that your heart makes in order to make sure that you are a healthy individual and that everything is alright. The exam has the abbreviation ECG, as well as the abbreviation EKG: The reason for the existence of these two abbreviations is due to the fact that the words differ according to the language, and it was original from Germany, where it was elektrokardiogramm (EKG).