{democracy:30}

This is kind of interesting… I have often thought about this over the years. The EKG standards need to be changed among the elder population.
After analyzing readings from more than 700 patients 80 or older, the researchers discovered that the average cutoffs (beginning and end points) for measuring all three ECG intervals — PR, QRS and QT — were greater than the current established norms. The findings also showed that the intervals, while greater in general, were significantly higher in men. The intervals refer to the times between recorded peaks of the specific motions in a heartbeat as represented on …read more

Working at an urgent care facility, I see a lot of acute heart attacks as well as extreme panic attacks. I was poking around the internet and my old text books this morning looking for definitive differences on the ol’ anxiety attack and MI. I know that some experience such extreme panic type feelings, heart palpitations and shortness of breath, that the only definitive way to tell exactly what is going on is looking for ST changes on an EKG.
So much of what I read really bothered me. “The difference is that panic attacks are not crushing and heart attacks …read more

Last week, Flicka of The Vacant Uterus went to her primary care doctor to follow-up on an earlier distressing emergency room visit after feeling fluttering and pressure in her chest. Instead of making her feel better, her doctor left her in doubt. She’s supposed to get a cardiology referral, but isn’t sure if or when that will happen.
In the mean time, waiting and wondering if it will happen again is driving me NUTS. It could be months before I feel anything again. It could be hours. Not knowing is the worst part of this. In some ways I …read more

Wolff-Parkinson-White (WPW) syndrome is a rare heart condition that affects between 0.1 and 3% of the general population with many of these people never experiencing a symptom in their lives. For some, however, an attack can be very severe.
WPW is a condition in which the electrical signals of the heart is abnormal leading to pre-excitation syndromes. Symptoms include:

Extremely rapid heart beat that jumps up very quickly
Dizziness
Chest palpitations
Fainting during physical exertion
Cardiac arrest in extreme cases

Jeff Carter was one such person with WPW. In June 2005, his mother found him after he had already collapsed and suffered severe brain damage. …read more