When Additional Tests Needed to Diagnose Heart Disease?

ECG or electrocardiogram is an important test in diagnosing heart disease. We think that a normal ECG means there is no heart disease. But even if the ECG is normal, heart disease can still be present, and even a heart attack can occur.

The heart has an electrical circuit through which the heart always beats at a certain rate. A heartbeat means one contraction and one expansion of the heart. When a graphical image of this beat is captured with the help of a device, that is the ECG. With the ECG, the heart rate, rhythm, normal size of the heart chambers, whether there is any block or obstruction in the electrical circuit, etc. can be understood better.

A heart attack is a condition in which the heart’s contractions become weak. More than 70 percent of heart attacks can be detected by looking at an ECG.

Key Considerations Symptoms

• Symptoms of a heart attack are the main consideration. In this case, there may be sudden pain in the middle of the chest, sometimes severe pain, a feeling that someone is pressing on the chest, and a feeling of great heaviness in the chest. However, silent heart attacks are also not uncommon.
• In elderly people, long-term and uncontrolled diabetic patients, or patients suffering from neurological complications, due to reduced pain perception, a heart attack may occur in addition to chest pain. In angina or coronary heart disease without a heart attack, chest pain occurs on exertion and disappears on rest. In these cases, too, a resting ECG may be found normal.
• There are some arrhythmias or irregular heartbeats that are short-lived. Arrhythmias cause palpitations. These patients are more likely to have normal ECGs if they are asymptomatic.
• Some heart valve diseases and some congenital heart diseases may not show any significant changes on the ECG. Cardiomyopathy, or heart muscle disease where the heart becomes enlarged and weak, especially in pregnancy, can also cause a normal ECG. In such cases, an echocardiogram is needed. This means that an ECG alone cannot rule out heart disease.