A modified chest leads for minimization of ventricular activity in electrocardiograms

Abstract

A very little information of the atrial depolarization and repolarization phase of the electrocardiogram is seen in normal and in any abnormal ECG’s. The observation of the electrical activity of the each atrium is critical in the case of the atrial arrthymias. Since, the conventional 12 lead ECG configuration views the electrical axis of the different anatomical space of the ventricles, much larger information about the atria is not well explained. The atrial activity seen in ECG trace is very less compared to the QRS complex and some of the atrial phase is obscured in the large ventricular activity. A modified chest lead system is proposed to provide more information about the electrical activity of the atria in normal subjects. ECG trace were recorded and analyzed simultaneously for the subjects with the proposed modified chest leads and the conventional bipolar limb leads in the CRO. The amplitude of the QRS complex in conventional bipolar limb leads was found to be 3.4V, 4.8V and 1.4V respectively and the Einthoven triangle were satisfied. In the modified chest lead ECG, the QRS complex was much reduced and found to be 0.6V. The duration of the atrial P wave was found to be 0.08sec and the total atrial complex was found to be 0.22 sec in the modified chest lead. A negative wave was found in the PR segment which is found to be non iso-electric and had duration of 0.14 sec claimed due to the atrial repolarisation wave.