Understanding the 12 Lead ECG! Whether you work within a coronary care unit or a general surgical unit, we have all performed a 12 lead electrocardiogram (ECG) on one of our patients at some point or another. We’ve prepped the chest of a patient that could rival some of the sheep shearing competitions that occur in New Zealand. We’ve tried untangling the mess of leads while secretly imagining the face of the colleague that left the ECG machine in such disarray on the dart board of our local bar. We’ve all had to deal with that ONE patient who cannot comprehend what it means to “lie still and quietly”. And after all of that effort to get that perfect print out of an ECG, wouldn’t it be nice to understand what those 12 leads are actually telling you? A picture paints a thousand words, so let’s start with the placement of the leads when performing a 12 lead ECG: When you connect a patient to an ECG machine as per the images above, it generates something that looks like this:
Comments
Post a Comment