Holter monitoring
Holter monitoring or ambulant ECG monitoring is 24-hour monitoring of cardiac activity using a Holter monitor. It is used in patients with occasional chest pain or palpitations who have a suspected heart rhythm disorder.
Holter monitor[edit | edit source]
A holter monitor is a medical device that is used to record heart activity, usually for 24 or 48 hours. Most often we only meet the name Holter. The difference between Holter and ECG is that Holter allows us to obtain information over time with increased patient physical activity.
Principle[edit | edit source]
The patient in the outpatient clinic receives a small box, which the doctor attaches to his chest using several electrodes. The patient can then go home and have the device with them for 24 hours. It is important that during these 24 hours he writes down the duration of various activities, possibly the time and end of various subjective difficulties (palpitations, fatigue, shaking of the head, etc.). The box is actually a special ECG recorder that records the patient's ECG all the time. After those 24 hours, the patient returns the box to the physician to evaluate the record. The cardiologist can thus find out whether the patient developed arrhythmias during the observed period and, thanks to the patient's notes, he can also determine on what occasions this happened.
Use[edit | edit source]
Holter ECG is of great importance in the diagnosis of transient arrhythmias. We will use it, for example, in patients with short-term shock problems of the nature of palpitations or disorders of consciousness, for whom we will not find anything during standard examinations, including a classic ECG. In these cases, we cannot rule out the possibility that short-term bouts of heart rhythm disorders (episodes of atrial fibrillation, atrial flutter, dangerous ventricular tachycardias, etc.) are not responsible for the manifestations. The 24-hour ECG recorded during Holter monitoring has a much higher chance of detecting arrhythmias than a classic ECG recording only a few seconds of heart activity.
