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ECG equipment

The heart is the center of a person's circulatory system. It includes a complex electromechanical system that draws oxygenated blood from the lungs and pumps it to the organs of the body to provide the organs with their metabolic needs for oxygen, and draws deoxygenated blood from the organs and pumps it into the lungs where the blood gets oxygenated. When functioning properly, the human heart maintains its own intrinsic rhythm, and is capable of pumping adequate blood throughout the body's circulatory system. The body's autonomous nervous system generates intrinsic electrical heart activity signals that are conducted to atrial and ventricular heart chambers on the left and right sides of the heart. The electrical heart activity signals trigger resulting heart contractions that pump blood. These cardiac electrical signals can be monitored by an electrocardiogram (ECG) apparatus configured to receive electrical signals associated with the physical cardiac activity, which is manifested through electrical activity available generally on the surface regions of the thorax. The intrinsic electrical heart activity signals are monitored to provide an electrocardiogram (ECG) signal to a physician, clinician, diagnostician, or researcher to obtain information about heart function. Electrocardiograph (ECG) systems measure cardiac electrical activity associated with the muscular pumping activity of the heart. The electrical activity is measured by contacts or leads placed on the body of the patient. In normal operation, an ECG can measure voltages associated with the nerve and muscles involved in cardiac activity. Thus, surface-adhering electrodes may receive electrical signals generated by cardiac activity. The electrodes may be positioned at various, specific, pre-determined locations on the body determined, for example, with reference to various electrical models of the body or by empirical, clinical studies. In one example, the thorax can be modeled using parallel columns with two electrically conducting tissue paths. One path may include a relatively lower resistive blood path while a second path may include a relatively higher resistive tissue path. These paths may be employed to form circuits between ECG electrodes. A normal electrocardiogram is a scale or representation that shows deflections resulting from cardiac activity as changes in the magnitude of voltage and polarity over time and includes a P-Wave, a QRS complex, a T-Wave, and a U-Wave. These waves are then analyzed using a set of rules and parameters to determine what is normal and what is not. Certain deviations are used to flag possible complications. Typically, the measured electrical activity may then be printed out as an ECG waveform or trace for review by a doctor or diagnostician.

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