What is an EKG artifact?

[usha thomas]

what is artifact in ecg

[Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN]

It's interference so that it can't get an accurate tracing; it typically doesn't look like any rhythm. I pasted a Google Images result b/c it's easier than trying to describe what it looks like. Usually it's caused by pt movement--getting up out of bed, coughing, shivering, etc. Sometimes it's the positioning of the wires too; the one on the 3rd line w/ the normal QRS's and everything in between looking really fat, is usually solved by repositioning the leads. EKG artifact - Google Search

[psu_213, BSN, RN]

It is the EKG tracing done by a Mayan witch doctor that an archaeologist digs up…

Sorry, couldn't resist. The above response is accurate, but I suggest Googling it for even more info.

[TheNGTKingRN]

Was this question allnurses worthy? I'm CERTAIN Google had the answer. Is this a homework question?

[mariebailey, MSN, RN]

TheNGTKingRN said:

Was this question allnurses worthy? I'm CERTAIN Google had the answer. Is this a homework question?

Whoa killa dilla! Maybe he or she assumed we would have nursing degrees & google wouldn't.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

Those are good examples of artifact. Also think of the "toothbrushing VT" you see every morning in every CCU, and the mess that shaking chills or seizures makes in a tracing.

However, when you see a really fat line in between the QRS complexes, fat and fuzzy and looking like it was drawn with a wide magic marker with regular little spikes, chances are excellent that's 60-cycle interference caused by an electrical fault (ground fault) in something the patient's hooked up to or on-- pump, bed, scale, TV control, something. Start unplugging one thing at a time and see when the fat fuzzy line disappears, and when you find the thing responsible, take it out of service immediately and send it for repair of its ground wire. Stray electricity like that can be dangerous around electrolyte-filled fluids and people with pacer wires or other things leading to vascular places.

Here's the thing: An ECG (unless you're speaking German) is just a simple voltmeter connected to a recording graph. That is, it simply measures voltage over time across a number of electrodes. Any voltage sources sensed across the electrodes which are not generated by the action potentials of the cardiac tissue are artifacts.

So where can other voltages come from?

Contraction of non-cardiac muscle... shivering/tremors, speaking, skeletal muscle movement, etc

Electrical interference... 60-hz noise from poorly shielded alternating-current sources or high-voltage sources (inductive coupling), or a pacemaker/AICD, or another person touching the patient between two electrodes, or even moving the electrode wires, or an electrode whose contact with the patient is variable (Ohm's law: changing resistance means changing voltage)