What Is Stress Test?

Stress test is just a screening tool to examine the effect of exercise on your heart. It gives a general sense of how healthy your heart is. It uses a treadmill or an exercise bike to get a person’s heart working, and an electrocardiogram and blood pressure cuff to measure heart function. Sometimes, it is also known as exercise ECG, stress ECG, exercise electrocardiography, or stress test - exercise treadmill.

Normally, you will be asked to walk or pedal on an exercise machine while the electrical activity of your heart is measured with an electrocardiogram (ECG), and blood pressure readings are taken. Your heart's reaction to your body's increased need for oxygen will be measured.

The test will continue until you reach a target heart rate, unless complications such as chest pain or a substantial rise in blood pressure are evident. You will then be monitored for another 10 - 15 minutes after exercising, or until your heart rate returns to baseline.

Before taking the test, you must not eat, smoke, or drink beverages containing caffeine or alcohol for 3 hours. All your medications should continue unless instructed otherwise. It is advisable to wear comfortable shoes and loose clothing to allow exercise.

If you have taken sildenafil citrate (Viagra) within the past 24 hours, you should inform your doctor. This is because nitroglycerin, which is sometimes given during a stress test to relieve chest pain, should not be given to a person who has recently taken Viagra: such combination can cause a serious drop in blood pressure.

Nevertheless, taking stress test alone may not be sufficient. This is because a United States study had showed that stress tests aimed at detecting blocked arteries in patients may miss more than half the case of early heart disease. The study reported that 56 percent of patients who passed their stress tests in fact had hardening arteries requiring treatment with diet, exercise and medication.

Their findings showed that a relatively high number of patients who had normal readings on their stress tests actually had a calcium score of greater than 100, a score that implies necessity for aggressive medical treatment.

The calcium score can be obtained by taking a calcium test, which uses a quick burst of specialized X-rays called a computed tomography, or CT scan, to find evidence of plaques that block arteries. Calcium scores of zero are the best scores. Patients with calcium scores from 100 to 400 are at increase risk for cardiac events such as heart attacks, while patients with scores above 400 have the highest risk for a heart attack.

Experts believed that most men over 45 and most women over 55, as well as smokers, people with high cholesterol and other risk factors should have a calcium scan.

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