Electrocardiogram

So when you’re having symptoms of a chest pain and you present to the emergency room, one of the first tests that’s done in the ER to determine whether or not you’re having a heart attack is an electrocardiogram. The electrocardiogram shows a normal heart rhythm, but when you have a blockage in your heart and you have what we call ischemia, that is the heart and muscle is deprived of oxygen. There’s some changes that you see in the EKG’s that either point to the artery that’s blocked and what segment of the heart is not getting enough oxygen. And this is one of the first tests that we use to diagnose heart attacks in the emergency room.