Sorry, I disagree with House’s comment for the 3-lead ECG. The 3-lead ECG has its medical value although the ECG Primer is not emphasis on its medical benefit. When I was in the medical school earlier, a portable 3-lead ECG system was the favor equipment being used. “3-Lead wire ECG system (Einthoven’s Triangle) has been around for sometime. In fact, the three lead ECG recently celebrate its 100th birthday. While the five lead ECG is gradually becoming the norm, the three lead ECG continues to be used in emergency departments, telemetry, monitoring and during medical procedures.” (www.nursecom.com). The 3-lead ECG can definitely be used for the diagnosis of cardiac arrhythmias by assessment of PP- or RR-intervals, which including the sinus arrhythmia, sinus bradycardiac, sinus tachycardiac, wandering pacemaker, paroxysmal atrial techycardiac, supraventricular arrhythmias, ventricular arrhythmias, atrial fibrillation and ventricular fibrillation. It can be also used for the diagnosis of disorders in the activation sequence by observing the relationship between P-wave and QRS-complex wave, which including different degrees of atrioventricular conduction defects (A-V blocks). The 3-lead ECG system may not suitable for atrial or ventricular enlargement and myocardiacl ischemia and infarction may require because it need more leads to look at the heart in different angles. The 12-lead system can provide more accurate information in those cases.
I never enforcing ECG Primer in medical usage is not because the 2-lead or 3-lead system. It is because that even you can get ECG traces, to interpreting the traces for diagnosis requires the good trained doctor and ECG technician, which may not be the easy task for the normal person. Also, the safety measurements (such as the isolation amplifier) will be the import issues. The ECG Primer project is not claimed to be the clinic equipment (at least not the pricing professional medical equipment) but it can be used in preventive medicine along other non-professional devices as the consumer blood pressure mornitor, the home diabetes kits and the body temperature meter. I am sure the Primer can find its way to be practically used in other fields such as biofeedback monitor. I am working on lowering its noise level to improve its performance.
Jingxi Zhang
Last edited by jingxizhang (2008-03-07 00:56:57)
