adovr_d87389c80da99bef8f38776d3f905184 Articles medical and health: Understanding Your Heart Condition With Cardiac Stress Test

Understanding Your Heart Condition With Cardiac Stress Test

By Andrew Wright


Physicians say that some heart problems can be easily diagnosed if your heart is beating faster or working hard. Stress testing, therefore, gives information of your heart and how it works when subjected to physical strain. When performing a cardiac stress test, you walk on a treadmill or you can pedal fixed bike. This causes your heart to work harder as well as beat faster. The heart tests are performed while you exercise.

It may be impossible to do exercises when your heart is undergoing testing because of arthritis or certain medical problems. In such a circumstance, the doctor prescribes drugs to subject the heart to hard work, similar to when doing an exercise. This is a kind of testing referred to as pharmacological stress testing.

Physicians use heart testing methods to diagnose the coronary heart disease or find out its severity. Coronary heart disease arises when a waxy substance known as plaque builds in your coronary arteries, which carry blood rich in oxygen to the heart. When the plaques build up, they narrow the arteries thereby reducing blood flow to the heart muscle. Plaques can also increase blood clot which seriously block the flow of blood through the artery. This is when conditions such as angina or chest pain and heart attack arise.

Sometimes, individual suffering from coronary heart ailment may not depict the signs of the disease. However, detecting the condition is possible by subjecting heart to hard work. When the heart is subject to hard tasks, for instance during exercises, more oxygenated blood is required. Therefore, the heart may not function well due to a limited supply of blood because of narrowed arteries. Additionally, it is during exercises that signs of coronary disease occur.

Other problems are as well detectable during the stress test. The problems may suggest that sufficient oxygenated blood is not reaching your heart during exercises. The test primarily indicates blood pressure, heart rate or abnormal changes. Then signs of chest pain and breath shortness can be detected at abnormal heart rhythm and lower levels of exercise.

If you cannot perform the exercise for the time considered normal for your age during the test, this could be a sign of lack of sufficient flow of blood to the heart. Other factors other than coronary heart disease may lower the exercise duration. Such factors are such as anemia, lung disease, and poor general fitness. Doctors can also use stress testing to look at other problems like heart failure and heart valve disease.

Various tests can be used by your doctor in Princeton, NJ, although the most common is the one known as exercise stress testing. This test is also called treadmill test and is used to give information on how the heart responds to physical strain. When undertaking this exam, heart rate, blood pressure and electrocardiogram are monitored.

Your doctor may as well employ nuclear stress testing. This is important in finding out parts of the heart that are healthy or unhealthy. The doctor administers an injection with a radioactive substance in a small amount and observes the rays produced by the element using a special camera. Exact areas in your heart with dwindling in blood supply can be detected in this way.




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