How much faith do you have in 9 lead ECG's

[mobey]

Hey all

In school my instructor pulled me aside and quickly showed me how to do a 9 lead with a 3 lead monitor ( I loved cardiology and rhythm interp ). I am just wondering how reliable/common they are prehospital. I do not do 12's but with an hour travel time to the nearest hospital I like to use all tools at hand to thier full potential. I have had the discussion before on this site about not diagnosing an STEMI based on 3 lead... however 9 lead?

[AZCEP]

The biggest problem with the modified chest leads (MCL's) is they do not view the heart in the same plane as the true chest leads.

Limb leads look vertically, the chest leads look horizontally. Moving the limb leads will give you an approximation, but the plane that is viewed doesn't change.

Better than nothing, but still not of diagnostic quality reliably.

[Ridryder 911]

Ditto to Azcep posts. From one whom performed multi leads before XII lead were available in the field. It does at least present a better picture than 3 lead. Personally, I still prefer to monitor in Mcl1 if possible.

R/r 911

[mobey]

Limb leads look vertically, the chest leads look horizontally. Moving the limb leads will give you an approximation, but the plane that is viewed doesn't change.

Do you have a simple explination of these planes. I have googled it but can't really get my head around how these leads view the heart. I wish my course would have been more in depth on ECG's, but rhythm interp had most of the class stuck on "hummingbird", so it was hard to get anymore technical.

[Dustdevil]

Do you have a simple explination of these planes.

Yes. And for $41.38 cad, you can too!

http://www.amazon.ca/Rapid-Interpretation-...TF8&s=books

[VentMedic]

Excellent book...

Dale Dubin's past didn't hurt his book sales through the years.

[DwayneEMTP]

Yes. And for $41.38 cad, you can too!

http://www.amazon.ca/Rapid-Interpretation-...TF8&s=books

Dust turned me onto this book! Amazing! For those of us with an I.Q. hovering in the low 50s....even we can't fail to understand it. I wish he wrote all my texts!

Hey? Would recommending this book be an appropriate FAQ post?

Dwayne

[mobey]

Thanks for the recommendation Dust, (You made my wife's life easier for B-Day shopping).

I guess what I'm wondering is does a MCL lead look at the heart the same way as a V lead?

And yes I'll probably buy the book :!:

[Lithium]

Short answer yes, long answer no.

Don't forget with 12-lead machines, when its put into '12 lead mode' to actually acquire a 12-lead, the frequency response changes in the machine so it picks up more, where as with normal 3/4 lead, it cuts alot of stuff out. Due to this, your MCL (which I have used before 12 leads were standard) will provide you with more info than a 3 lead would, but it won't be as clear and diagnostic.

Jacob

[AZCEP]

This is close, but not quite.

The limb leads (I, II, III, aVR, aVL, & aVF) look from the top--down, or base to apex. The plane transects the ventricles into front and back halves.

The chest leads (V1-6) look at the ventricles from the CT, or central terminal, out to the surface. The plane transects the heart into atrial and ventricular sections.