Be Still My Beating Heart , Look at Your Patient First #screamandshout #cardiacarrhythmia #ECG

Does your heart skip a beat? Palpitate or stop suddenly ( I hope not).....well you might just have some arrhythmia going on. What is an arrhythmia you ask? A fancy word for an abnormal beating of your heart due to some electrical or mechanical abnormality.

If you are a nurse and you are reading this, you may be just as bewildered as I was once about heart arrhythmia's.
I learned to always look at my patient first and formost, know normal sinus rhythm , and then learn from there.
Is your patient pink, warm, dry and talking to you.....then you are ok!
Is the patient moving in the bed? is he scratching his chest? well you might just have some artifact and you almost jumped on your patient and scared the living crap out of him. Look for the simple fixes first unless he is grey, blue, or a nice shade of purple with no pulse.....then you can shout OH Sh@# and get some help......lol
Those crazy monitors are not always right, just because it says he is in Vtach, is he?? maybe, maybe not!
Practice, practice, practice and it comes with time and experience. A few embarrassing moments aside and you will learn, it has happened to all of us, don't let any ER or critical care nurse tell you that they have not been fooled before by a patients cardiac rhythm before, they are lying if they tell you otherwise.

Now what if you are not medically inclined? how do you interpret this chart?  Best thing is to find out what kind of irregular problem you or your loved one has and learn as much about it as you can from your cardiac doctors or credible websites. Knowing all these different cardiac rhythms if you don't need to will just overwhelm you right now. Learning normal is a great way to learn what abnormal is. Start with the normal ECG components at the top and the anatomy of the heart itself, it is a fabulous organ.

Original document is located here http://www.docstoc.com/docs/48034809/Arrhythmia-Recognition

Here are some of the most common Arrhythmia's to remember and be aware of if you are a nurse. Know these first and then work on the harder blocks etc.
I will review those in another post...............until later, have a great day or night!