Process of Long-Term Holter Monitoring and How It Works

Posted on March 18, 2022

Heart ailments are among the leading causes of death in the populace of the world, regardless of age or gender. Majority of cardiovascular diseases, such as strokes and heart attacks, precipitate from a cocktail of different factors; such as increased stress, poor diets, irregular sleep patterns and poor fitness regimes.

Cardiac arrhythmia is one such prominent heart disorder distinguished by fluctuating heartbeat or rhythm; and exists in two forms, and Tachycardia, referring to decreased and increased heartbeats, respectively. Either of these conditions can induce perilous symptoms including but not limited to chest pain and palpitations, breathlessness, dizziness, and also unexplained spells of fainting.

In order to combat this unpredictable adversary, the inculcation of cardiac arrhythmia monitoring devices, in the detection of any symptoms of arrhythmia in heart patients, has observed limelight. Newer versions of this technology are wireless and allow for constant monitoring remotely, resulting in a profoundly mitigated risk of sudden or undetected episodes that may have, in a different scenario, resulting in a patient’s expiration.

In this article, we review a state-of-the-art heart monitoring system which is the Holter Monitor. Besides the fact that it is portable and effective at continuously monitoring heart activity; it is also very convenient, as it can be worn underneath the clothes for an extended period of time without interfering with routine activities. The data stored by the monitor is extracted, evaluated and subsequently analysed by a physician, once it is returned to the clinic, to diagnose, manage and treat arrhythmia.

Know About Long-Term Holter Monitoring

The Holter Monitor is a remote heart monitoring devices designed to work as a portable holter monitoring device. The latest versions of Holter monitors allow recording for an increased duration, lasting up to 48 hours to almost a month, depending on requirement. This is possible due to improved memory capacity and this process is referred to as Long-Term Holter monitoring.

Holter (or Ambulatory ECG) monitors are used by patients who are suspected to have portrayed symptoms of arrhythmia to record their heart activity while at home and walking around conducting normal daily activities. This is beneficial as at hospitals it is not always possible to detect intermittent episodes of arrhythmia using an ECG.

They also help predict the chance of a patient developing arrhythmia, their response to treatment and also evaluate the possibility of the occurrence of silent ischemia, i.e., the loss of blood flow or oxygen to the heart without the typical chest pain.

These remote sensors can also be triggered automatically during an event of arrhythmia and instantly send information, via wireless means a centralized server, providing near real-time data to physicians, enabling them to provide quick, seamless treatment.

How to Use a Long-Term Holter in Cardiac Treatment

Innovative, cutting-edge advancements in medical technology continue to provide convenient and comfortable means of therapy. Holter monitoring is one such procedure that has benefited from this developmental trend.

Usually, the Holter monitor consists of small electrodes that are attached to a patient’s chest, further connected, by wires, to a small heart health monitoring devices attached to a belt. The patient also receives a diary to note the time of development of the symptoms of arrhythmia.

On the analysis of the data recorded by the monitor, physicians can evaluate the heart condition through the correlation of abnormal heart rhythm data with the symptoms recorded by the patient.
This provides a doctor with a thorough understanding of whether arrhythmia accounts for the exhibited symptoms, and the type of arrhythmia that is being experienced by the patient.

Benefits of Using Long-Term Holter for Patients & Physicians

In the past few years, Long-Term Holter monitoring has developed into the gold standard for ambulatory cardiac monitoring, with a data recording capacity that can data for almost 30 days. There are numerous advantages of using Holter monitoring systems, some of them are listed as follows:

• Clinicians are adopting Long-Term Holter monitoring eagerly, with the advent of convenient and simple wearable monitoring technology, thanks to the considerable diagnostic output provided compared to old-school 24-hour monitoring systems.
• Progress in peel and stick and other wearable technologies has significantly improved patient experience through the comfortable and easy means of data collection, thereby facilitating extended monitoring periods.
• Even though the traditional means of 24-hour Holter monitoring still assist doctors in diagnosis, their yield is only quantifiable to a range of 15% to 39% of the required diagnostic output. From this, we can infer that the lack of the rest of the 61% to 89% data can lead to inconclusive results and may warrant further monitoring using more expensive methods such as mobile cardiac telemetry (MCT) or implantable cardiac monitors (ILR).
• Although there are other techniques to provide a diagnostic yield greater than that of Holter monitoring, these methods of extended monitoring are considerably more expensive, complicated for patients to use by themselves due to their design limitations such as classical lead wires, size and weight; leading to inoperability by patients at their time of need due to their cumbersome nature.

Outcomes of Using This Heart Performance Monitoring Device

The Holter monitor has been helping save human lives and continues to do so, more proficiently, through its evolution over the decades. The most significant aspects of its purpose are as follows:

• The most important benefit of this technology is the accumulation of data in an extensive manner, allowing doctors or hospitals to accurately diagnose the symptoms of arrhythmia. The analysis conducted with this data also allows for noise reduction and prediction of future episodes of arrhythmia that might occur, through the use of predictive models and neural networks, algorithms designed using machine learning and artificial intelligence-based software.
• The other vital benefit is the ease of utilizing this lifesaving technology from the comfort of one’s home. Long term Holter monitors can be equipped by the patients themselves through minimal training, enabling seamless integration of diagnosis and a patient’s daily life; making it economical, by saving on travelling and frequent consultation charges.
• There also exist provisions such as Pay-Per-Use, which is an added benefit for new patients that eliminates any hesitations that they may harbour towards an unchartered territory. This feature allows patients to indulge in treatment using cutting-edge technology, providing added value for money by only charging for the amount of time the services are used. This not only promotes the quicker acceptance of an innovative technique but is also economical for the patient and reduces the impact of hard to recycle E-waste that is a rampant problem.

Conclusion

Novel advancements in technologies will continue to enhance the technology at our disposal and the healthcare sector continues to adopt such developments for the betterment of humanity. It is also a matter of importance that such progress is adopted by the populace through a systematic dissemination of information to address any rising doubts and concerns.
Habits might make a man, but it is the presence of awareness and the need to alter one’s fate that matters whether we survive. This is the conclusion that we can draw as we strive towards a better future.

Tags: Holter Monitoring Devices, Long Term Holter Monitors