The Spectrum of Ambulatory Electrocardiographic Monitoring

Abstract

Since its introduction as a clinical investigative tool, the 12-lead electrocardiograph (ECG) has been the gold standard for recognition of cardiac arrhythmias. The resting 12-lead ECG, however, gives only a rhythm snapshot in time, whereas arrhythmias maybe short-lived, paroxysmal and even asymptomatic making documentation in many patients very difficult. To overcome this, ambulatory ECG monitoring has been developed as a means of recording the ECG in patients over a set period of time, whether it be short-, medium- or long-term. With the miniaturisation of recording devices and advances in solid state technology, there has been a recent revolution in hardware design, so that the boundaries..