What does this shit mean? I’m a PT aide in a hospital and I have no idea what that shit means and Google isn’t making sense
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There are 5 “bumps” on an electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) that represent the electrical actions in the heart. The first bump is the P wave, or atrial depolarization. This causes the atria to contract and pump blood to the ventricles. Next, you have a small down bump, a big up bump, and another small down bump. These are the Q, R, and S waves respectively. They are sometimes groups together into the QRS complex which generally refers to ventricular depolarization causing contraction of the ventricles and the heart pumping blood to the rest of the body. Finally, there is the T wave which refers to ventricular repolarization which readies the heart for the next beat.
You can break the process down into segments. The time (or interval) between the Q wave and the T wave is called the QT interval (scientists are not very creative…). This is often measured in milliseconds. QTc is just the QT interval corrected for heart rate.
The main reason we care about QT/QTc is because a long QT/QTc interval (generally longer than 400ms) puts you at increased risk for a specific heart rhythm issue called Torsades de Pointes (commonly shortened to Torsades). Torsades is a ventricular tachycardia (fast abnormal heart rhythm) that can be fatal. Monitoring QT can help reduce the risk for a patient developing Torsades.
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