The Importance of Early Detection: How Cardiac Diseases Can Be Detected with Holter Monitors

Posted on October 20, 2023

Worldwide, circulatory and heart diseases affect at least 620 million. This is the global burden as of 2023. But that’s not even the most shocking bit of statistic. The worst part is that of all strokes and heart attack cases, 8 in 10 of them are preventable, according to findings by the World Health Organization. While exercise and a good diet, are key towards preventing them, early detection is just as important. And that’s where holter monitors come in to ensure that heart problems are found early and treated before they go from bad to worse.

How Holter monitors detect cardiac diseases early

Heart arrhythmias and other cardiac anomalies are normally detected via a standard or conventional EKG. In such cases, the technician places electrodes around the chest to pick out electrical signals that the heart is giving out. This creates waves that are visible on the ECG strip. From this, your technician can determine irregularities in terms of rhythm, rate, and so on to be able to determine various cardiac conditions such as:

1.Abnormal heart rhythms
2.Enlarged heart
3.Heart attack
4.Heart disease

Now the concept remains the same, for the most part, with a Holter monitor but there’s a key difference. While a standard EKG provides testing just when you visit the doctor’s office, Holter monitoring services provide round-the-clock uninterrupted ECG monitoring for 24-48 hours. Holter monitors are wearables that record your heart’s electrical activity continuously and remotely.

To get why this is important and how it helps in the early detection of heart disease, it’s important to think about the nature of some arrhythmias. Many heart arrhythmias occur intermittently. That means they come and go or occur sporadically. Hence, they are so easily missed on a conventional EKG test so heart disease goes unnoticed.

A mobile cardiac ECG monitoring service provides a wider diagnostic window. With Holters able to provide monitoring over 48 hours, there’s a higher likelihood that asymptomatic and sporadic arrhythmias will be picked up.

Patient-triggered and automated holters

Traditional holter monitors work this way. You wear the Holter device for the prescribed period, and when you feel any symptoms throughout the day, you press a button and it records the heart’s electrical activity at this time. The device then relays this data to your physician who can match the symptoms and ECG strip to a potential heart problem or disease.

But there are newer-age Holter monitors that work a little differently. They involve a wireless device that’s wearable like a small armband, and provides an extended period of use. Via a Bluetooth connection, the sensors can detect irregular heart patterns and then send that data to a special smartphone app. Overall, such a cardiac event recorder service can help with the early detection of heart disease and save lives by anticipating early signs of:

1.Atrial fibrillation
2.Stroke
3.Heart failure
4.Cardiac arrest

The need for early detection

Heart disease claims nearly 18 million lives annually across the globe according to the World Health Organization, making it the number killer on the planet. Early detection is crucial to saving more lives and changing these statistics for the better.
Aside from preventing death, here are other benefits of detecting heart diseases early:

Reduced risk of complications

In the early stages, many heart problems have few to no symptoms. By the time these begin to surface and severe signs set in such as chest tightening and chest pain, severe tissue damage has likely occurred. In fact, the first sign of heart disease is many times fatal.
The early detection of heart disease helps your physician to pick out heart problems that you may not even know you have. Additionally, heart failure can also adversely affect other organs in your body the longer it does on, due to limited supply. Early detection prevents this from happening.

Higher likelihood of treatment success

Why is it important to detect heart disease early? Well, that’s because it gives your doctor enough time to come up with a treatment solution that ensures the best health outcomes.
Moreover, most corrective solutions such as surgery, for instance, are only viable before extensive tissue damage has occurred. Early detection allows you to seek treatment options before you get to this point of no return, further reinforcing the need to regularly check in with a heart performance monitor service.

Fewer readmissions

Hospital admissions are costly. They also cause patients a lot of distress and anxiety, which is the last thing you need when managing a heart disease. The early detection of heart disease ensures that you don’t get to spend avoidable nights in a hospital bed.
Overall, picking out heart disease early can lead to:
1.Lower risk of admission
2.Lower risk of readmission
3.Fewer medical expenses
4.Peace of mind for patient and family, and so on
More specifically, recent reports indicate that hospitalizations lower by at least 37% with remote cardiac monitoring.

Fewer treatment expenses

For acute cases, physicians can recommend medications such as blood pressure pills and beta blockers. They may also suggest simple adjustments to your lifestyle. When it comes to advanced cases, however, surgery may be necessary, which is a lot more expensive.
When you detect heart conditions early with a 24-hour ECG monitoring service, you can pinpoint problems while they are still in the acute stage, when simple and inexpensive corrective solutions are still viable. As a result, it makes treatment more effective and cost-effective as well.

Heart disease is preventable. Don’t be a statistic!

At the start of this article, we said that 80% of heart diseases are preventable. This means there’s a lot of room for improvement, and it’s up to care providers as well as patients to do better. Regular heart screening is of the essence, as is leading a heart-healthy lifestyle and making better choices. Those choices start by deciding on the right heart ECG monitoring report service to go with. If you require proven technology that nips cardiac problems in the bud, Cardiac Rhythm is here for you.Schedule a call with us today.

Tags: 24 Hour Holter Monitor, Cardiac Monitoring Services, cardiac rhythm, heart health