How Do You Read An EKG Strip?
An electrocardiogram is a painless medical procedure that takes a measurement of your heartbeat that your doctor can use to analyze your heart’s health. An electrocardiogram will produce an EKG strip, which measures the electrical activity of your heart. Have your doctor administer an EKG. The results of the test will be immediately available on paper for examination. Locate the sharp spikes in the activity line. These represent your heartbeat. You can measure the distance between them using the smallest squares, which each represent one-fifth of a second. The bold squares are composed of 25 smaller squares, and they represent one second. Measure the space between each peak. The length of time should be consistent across. If times are sporadic, you may have an irregular heartbeat. Measure the vertical distance the activity line jumps on your heartbeat. Each small square—equivalent to one millimeter—equals .1 mV (millivolt). This measures the electrical activity of your heart. Calcu
