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Understanding the Arrhythmia Display
• PR interval deviation must be large
• P-wave region must not match well
Atrial fibrillation analysis is only available for adult patients and atrial fibrillation detection cannot be
performed on PVCs or Paced beats.
Since most atrial flutters have regular RR intervals, they cannot be detected by the atrial fibrillation
algorithm.
An Afib alarm can be falsely detected in the presence of:
• sinus arrhythmia,
• muscle noise, or
• electrode motion artifact.
If you also have monitors with earlier software revisions, the Afib alarm will not be generated after a
transfer to one of these monitors. Always leave the Irregular HR alarm switched on, so that this alarm
can be generated in such situations.
See the Application Note on Arrhythmia/ST supplied on your documentation DVD for detailed
information on the arrhythmia algorithm and ECG analysis.
Intermittent Bundle Branch Block
Bundle branch and the other fascicular blocks create a challenge for the arrhythmia algorithm. If the
QRS during the block changes considerably from the learned normal, the blocked beat may be
incorrectly classified as ventricular, causing false PVC alarms. You should always select a lead where the
bundle branch block beats have an R-wave that is as narrow as possible to minimize incorrect calls.
Ventricular beats should look different from these 'normal beats'. Instead of trying to select two leads
with a narrow R-wave, it may be easier to just select one lead and use single lead arrhythmia
monitoring. Extra vigilance is required by the clinician for this type of patient.
Understanding the Arrhythmia Display
Your monitor screen may look slightly different from the illustration.
1
P
II
M
1mV
7
1
2
3
2
P
P
Delayed
Beat label
Pace pulse marks
Rhythm status message
7 ECG, Arrhythmia, ST and QT Monitoring
3
Paced Rhythm
PVC
2
Pair PVCs
6
4
5
HR
75
111
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Troubleshooting
