I keep a little, ever-expanding note on my phone where I jot down little morsels of goodness that I pick up while listening to or reading one of the many excellent sites/podcasts in the useful resource section.
I’ll try and transfer them here for your enlightenment.
If you’re having trouble interpreting an ECG then go here
If you’re having trouble with the recording of an ECG:
Fuzzy ECGs come from lots of reasons
- EMG signal from muscle (normally filterd out)
- 60Hz which is measured electrical signal in the room
- poor electrode contact makes all of these worse
Things that will help
- a good scrub on the skin will help
- alcohol useful to get skin oils off
In SVT if you’re not sure there’s p-waves
- before you give the nasty adenosine record an ECG at double paper speed (50mm/s instead of 25mm/s). This will half the rate on the print out and make it easier to see.
- doubling the gain can also help if you’re interested in seeing p-waves better
You can move your RA lead to the sternal notch and the LA lead to the 5th ICS right sternal border. Check out Lead I, you’ll have huge P-waves in comparison to the QRS complexes! This is the so called S5 Lead or Atrial Lead.
Optionally move LL to the right costal margin mid-axillary line to make II and III nice and big w.r.t P-waves too.
Cheers for the tips christopher. I think I saw something about that s5 lead on your blog, I’ll have to try it sometime.
Friars balsam also works wonders on the really diaphoretic patients when the leads are flying off as fast as you can place them!
Also makes the room smell nice.
I sometimes put a little on the inside of my scrub top, (or inside face mask) when dealing with really nasty pseudo or gangrene, etc. as well.
apparently nebulised orange juice is the ticket!