HOW CAN HEART PROBLEMS BE DETECTED AND MONITORED?
A There are many good tests in use today for detecting and following the progress of cardiac problems. The familiar EKG — the electrocardiogram — is perhaps the most often used. In this test, surface electrodes placed on the chest and limbs indirectly measure the current that flows through the heart. But the power of the EKG to reveal cardiomyopathies isn’t very great. An EKG measures electrical activity of the heart, not its muscle function. Abnormalities in muscle function are sometimes reflected in the EKG and sometimes not. A somewhat more elaborate but much more accurate test for cardiomyopathy is the echocardiogram, an ultrasound picture of the heart in action that resembles the kind of imaging study often done in pregnant women to check on the fetus. The technician can videotape the echocardiogram so the cardiologist can compare changes between tests. More invasive tests, such as cardiac catheterization studies, can be done under specific circumstances, if the situation warran
