What is a Heart Stress Test?!
Question: How accurate is it?
Anything better than?
Answers: How accurate is it?
Anything better than?
probably an exercise test. this is where a pt is connected to a 12 lead ECG and BP, both of which are continuously monitored whilst the pt walks for a while on a treadmill. signs and symptoms during this test suggest coronary ischaemia or otherwise.
during the exercise a pt is usually asked to reach thier target heart rate (THR) which is a generic number, 220 - age. although this would depend on previous symptoms/history, for instance has the pt had an MI within the last 5 days etc.
exercise is terminated either when the pt cannot continue, or THR has been achieved and held for around 1 minute or if there are any symptoms and/or ECG changes to suggest ischaemia. this is usually 2 mm ST depression with chest pain, or 3 mm ST depression with no pain, or >1mm ST elevation. exercise also ended if any arrhythmias such as AF, SVT, VT, VF etc. BP plays an important role in the proceding to.
BRUCE protocal is the standard routine. this is where the treadmill starts off at a relatively slow pace on a gentle incline of about 10%, every 3 minutes the pace and incline increase, so the test becomes progressively harder. it is suprisingly efficient at increasing the heart rate :-) designed in 1963 the BRUCE protocol is still being used all over the world!
there are other protocols available although they are less used, probably the only other one you might come across is the modified BRUCE, which is less aggresive and is usually used for high risk/ post MI pt's.
once exercise has finished the pt is then monitored during a recovery period, usually at least 5-6 minutes, although if there were any changes or symptoms during exercise you'll usually wait until they have resolved before ending the test completely.
there are other tests done in cardiology which stress the heart, such as a stress echo. this is where dobutamine or another such drug is used to increase heart rate while pictures of the heart are taken using ultrasound.
there are still others, but i'm guessing you mean either one of the above two in your question.
hope this helps.
here, check out this site: http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.j...