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When you stay in the hospital, you are most likely in a sedated state—either by heavy medication or a natural reaction to your painful situation. It’s hard to concentrate on your own visitors, let alone all the machinery beeping around you. But have you ever pondered about it afterwards? How does that medical EKG machine actually work and how did it help the doctors manage your condition?
If you ever get to the point where you’re curious enough to ask, perhaps it would help you to know the basic background behind the EKG machine.
The EKG machine, abbreviated from the German word "Elektrokardiogramm", is a device that records the activity of the heart over time by the electronic impulses sent out between heartbeats. Technically, exactly what happens when an EKG machine is activated during an operation or when a patient is resting? The first thing you have to understand is what the heart looks like.
The heart is basically a pump that has four separate chambers. The two upper chambers are called the atria and the two lower chambers are referred to as ventricles. A natural electrical current in the body causes the heart muscle to contract and pump blood throughout the body. The sympathetic electrical impulses in the heart occur in the sinoatrial node located in the right atrium of the heart and is then channeled through to the heart muscle where they cause it to contract.
In order to physically measure it, a trained EKG technician has to selectively place electrodes—which are prime electrical conductors—directly on the patient's skin. Small pads may be placed between the electrodes and your skin to improve conduction of the electrical impulses. The pads also act as a sort of buffer and make it more comfortable for patients.
There are separate electrical waves for different sides of the heart. The EKG reading will reflect the results on a digital graph, which can then be traced onto paper for easier analysis. This report is what most people associate with and remember about EKG machines because all of the hospital dramas like to use this as a suspenseful device. The flatter the lines read, the closer you are to imminent death. Of course, the TV shows are all about the theatrical elements of the truth and will not
The next time you are drugged out on your hospital bed and there’s a medical EKG machine actively beeping away at your bedside, rest assured that it is keeping track of your health and monitoring your condition more closely than the doctors can ever have the patience to do.
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