Stress echocardiogram

Stress echocardiogram is performed before and after your heart is stressed by performing exercise or injecting a medicine. In echocardiogram test you can have the pictures of the heart which measures the speed and direction of the blood flow with the help of the sound waves echoed from a small instrument known as transducer. This will make your heart beat harder and faster. This type of test is performed to find out if you have decreased blood flow to your heart (coronary artery disease or CAD). Echo is used as a test part in stress test with an electrocardiogram. It helps your doctor to learn more about your heart. There are some other types of echocardiogram.
Transthoracic echocardiogram (TTE): Transthoracic echocardiogram is the most common type of echocardiogram. The heart views are obtained by moving the transducer to different locations on the chest or abdominal wall.
Doppler echocardiogram: Doppler echocardiogram test looks at the manner of the blood flow through the heart chambers, blood vessels, heart valves.
Transesophageal echocardiogram (TEE): The test uses a probe passed down the esophagus instead of the moving transducer outside the chest wall.

Need

Stress echocardiogram is done to identify and monitor the reduced blood flow to heart muscle (ischemia).It becomes more apparent after some stress forms like exercise or medicine. It is performed in combination with doppler echocardiogram, too.

Procedure

You should not eat before few hours of stress echocardiogram. It will help to prevent nausea that may occur in the process of exercising when your stomach is full. You should use flat comfortable shoes and loose lightweight shorts or sweatpants for exercise during stress echocardiogram.
An echocardiogram without any activity will be performed before and it is known as the baseline. Then you have to start exercise for a particular time period. You have to walk on the treadmill or pedal a stationary bicycle. At the same time you are monitored by an EKG machine. Then you have to lie on the table for another echocardiogram. You have to breathe in and out very slowly and the IV may be injected in your vein to observe your heart function. IV helps to get good views in a condition like obesity or chronic lung disease. It is also used for a person on mechanical ventilator. It takes 30-60 minutes to complete. Sometimes instead of exercising, the injection is given to increase your heart rate and make your heart work more. The peak heart rate reaches in 115 minutes and then another echocardiogram is taken.

Result

Normal:
The heart walls and the rate, speed of the blood flow is in normal condition. Abnormal:There are signs of infection or leakage in the heart. The test results get affected if you are overweight with thick or large breasts or have lung disease like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. If you are unstable during the test or stand with a probe in your throat during the test, the results are likely to disturb.

Consideration

The test may cause dizziness, low blood pressure, shortness of breath, nausea, irregular heart beats.