ecg pauses

I don't quite understand what you mean by 'cardiac pauses.'

Do you mean, in the case of sinus arrest VS sinus pause?
Or compensatory pause??
Or ? ? ?

Thank you.

I've seen our Cardiologists measure from the beginning of the P wave to the beginning of the next P wave, assuming the pt is in a sinus rhythm.

Actually, when you're talking pauses you should be measuring R to R, or the 'peak' of the QRS to 'peak' of the next QRS.

You'll see pauses in different heart blocks (where there can be more than one p-wave per QRS, etc.) or in a-fib where there are no p-waves...for example...so p-wave intervals can be useless. A 'pause' is the amount of time between ventricular conractions...

Actually, I'd call it ventricular standstill, or even asystole. 8 seconds is a little long just to be considered a "pause". But you could call it a pause. I always measure R to R. When you have blocks (either from AV blocks or Afib/flutter) p-waves can be too intermittent or not even there to be useful to measure.

If they were having multiple 8 second pauses I would have the cart parked near, pads on and atropine in my pocket, but that's just me.

Cheers,
Tom

I read this awhile ago, and this discussion reminded me of it.