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Common Ways Of Diagnosing Myocardial Infarctions

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There are three common ways of diagnosing myocardial infarctions, ECG (electrocardiogram), blood draws, and imaging. “An electrocardiogram, also called an ECG or EKG, is a simple, painless test that detects and records your heart’s electrical activity. An EKG can show how fast your heart is beating, whether the rhythm of your heartbeats is steady or irregular, and the strength and timing of the electrical impulses passing through each part of your heart.” (National Institutes of Health, 2016). An ECG waveform involves multiple elements, each signifying a special phase of the depolarization-repolarization sequence. The base line represents no electrical activity, when the heart is resting. The P wave is the initial vertical rise above …show more content…

Although a NSTEMI shows no ST-segment elevation, the cardiac enzyme tests are elevated, representing that there is some damage occurring to the heart tissue. A series of blood test are usually administered with in a 24-hour period to not only verify that a patient has suffered a myocardial infarction, but to show the extent of death to the heart muscle. There are certain proteins that are discharged into the blood by dying cardiac tissue. These are referred to as cardiac enzymes. “These cardiac enzymes are creatine phosphokinase (CPK), special sub-fractions of CPK (specifically, the MB fraction of CPK), and troponin, and their levels can be measured in blood. These cardiac enzymes typically are elevated in the blood several hours after the onset of a heart attack.” (Daniel Lee Kulick, 2015). “Coronary angiograms are part of a general group of procedures known as heart (cardiac) catheterizations. Cardiac catheterization procedures can both diagnose and treat heart and blood vessel conditions. A coronary angiogram, which can help diagnose heart conditions, is the most common type of cardiac catheterization procedure.” (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2016). In a coronary angiogram, a dye that is detectable by X-ray is introduced into the blood vessels of the heart. The X-ray machine quickly takes a sequence of images showing the flow of the blood vessels. Treatment of Myocardial Infarction “The goals of therapy in acute MI are the expedient restoration of

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