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Samuel Vaisrub, MD

JAMA. 1975;232(1):57.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Unlike long-range surveillance of chronic diseases by periodic follow-ups, short-term monitoring of cardiac arrhythmias does not depend on a patient's compliance with therapy and his observance of return appointments, but on the observation of his rhythm disorders by a physician or nurse. Theoretically, such observation by trained professionals should be more reliable than compliance by a layman whose attitudes and capabilities are uncertain. But, apparently, it is not necessarily so.

Prompted by the observation¹ that conventional monitoring in acute myocardial infarction often fails to detect transient rhythm disturbances, Lindsay and Bruckner (p 51) investigated 86 cases of proved or suspected myocardial infarction during 32 monitoring periods—a total of 754 patient-hours—in a coronary care unit. Heart beats were observed on an oscilloscopic display in the usual manner and were logged hourly by a team of three to five nurses. The logs were compared by the investigators with scans of electrocardiographic . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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