How to read a Cardiac Rhythm Strip
Meghan Walter NURS 609 Week 5 Cardiac rhythm strips although they look daunting are actually quite simple if you read them in a systematic manner. Once you know what's normal, it is easy to figure out what rhythm the patient is in. Let's follow some simple steps and figure them out together! This is a diagram of the electrocardiograph. The waves and intervals are labeled in this picture. Image Retrieved from: https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-illustration-heart-ecg-ekg-showing-major-intervals-created-adobe-illustrator-eps-image46354916 Now that we know the basic image we are trying to look at, we will follow a methodical step by step approach to figure out what rhythm we are looking at! On the ECG paper we usually print out a six second recording. Each small box is 0.04 seconds, each large box (5 small boxes) are 0.2 seconds. We need to know this for our interpretations. 1. Is the rhythm regular or irregular? For this you want to measure the dista