Sloane Street Investigations Cardiac Monitoring Services

These can be worn for 24 or 48 hours, or alternatively for 5 or 7 days.

The monitor involves having three tabs placed on your chest which make good skin contact. Each tab has a lead attached to it that connects with the monitor device, which is light and the size of a cassette. It is attached to your belt or worn round the neck.

The Holter device records electrical activity. If you have a change of heart rhythm, either the heart going too slow or too fast, it will record this. This enables the best advice to be given. More often it is provides reassurance that the extra beats are of a benign nature and not of any concern.

If you are wearing the device for 24, or possibly 48 hours you should leave it attached at all times and not shower or bathe, as this will interefere with the electrical contact tabs.

However, if you are wearing it for a longer period of time, then we will show you how to replace the electrotabs and re-connect the leads to them.

During the recording, if you have any symptoms, you can press the yellow or green buttons on the monitor and this will put an event marker on the recording. Also you are given a paper diary to enter the time of any symptoms and what it felt like, so we can correlate these symptoms with the recording.

When you hand back the monitor, the internal memory card on the device is analysed on a pathfinder machine, which will then print out a record of any relevant aspects of the recordings. The Holter monitors are useful for patients who have frequent symptoms, as they are caught during the time of monitoring.

With less frequent symptoms you will be given a different device called a cardio memo device.

This is a new system, whereby a small plastic device is attached onto the skin of your upper chest. It will record the heart rhythm continuouly. The device is programmed to pick up any rhythm abnormalities and has a button on it, which you can press to highlight when you have symptoms.

The gains of the device are that it adheres well to the chest and patients can lightly wash or shower whilst wearing it. It stays in that position for up to two weeks. It has no other wires and therefore feels more comfortable for a patient.

Usually used when symptoms are infrequent.

You carry the device with you and then just apply it to your chest, or make contact with both your hands to the device, to record your heart rhythm. You do this when you have symptoms. If there is nothing on the heart recording when you have such symptoms, it is reassuring that the symptoms are unlikely to be due to your heart.

Alternatively if you are feeling dizzy and the cardio memo device detects a rhythm abnormality simultaneously, then this is very useful. (If however a patient is actually having black outs, such a device would not necessarily be suitable as they would be unable to place the device on their chest to obtain the recording.)

This is an advanced cardio memo device that is attached to the back of your phone, to work alongside an application downloaded onto your phone. We will help you do this. Your phone can be either an iPhone or Android phone. When you experience symptoms you touch the tabs on the back of the device with both hands. Your heart's electrical signal is then recorded onto the machine. The recording can then be emailed to the reporting centre, or your doctor.

The gains are its simplicity of use. The debits are that it requires you to be fully conscious to operate and also the trace will not be as sophisticated as the Holter monitors.

This technique has been used for many years, as for about a third of patients their blood pressure tends to be artificially raised when they see a doctor or have their blood pressure measured in a surgery by a nurse. This is the so called 'White Coat' response. In such patients, when blood pressure is measured at home or on an ambulatory blood pressure monitor, we find the blood pressure to be considerably lower.