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There are times when a person will become stressed from a job or from family situations which can make different parts of his body and mind break down. There are stress level tests that can be done to determine if these physical symptoms are because of the stress or if the symptoms are there because of actual heart problems. Sometimes excess stress in a person’s life can cause symptoms in his body that feel like a heart attack. Instead, these symptoms are caused by a panic attack which makes the person feel like he is dying. The stress level tests are important in these cases because they can help to rule out any heart issues and determine what kind of stress treatment should be embarked on by the doctor and patient.
Types of Stress Level Tests
When a patient comes in with chest pains or other symptoms that point to a heart problem, the most common stress level test that is given is the exercise stress test. Just hearing about the exercise stress test can make some people anxious, but in reality, the test usually does not last more than twelve minutes at the most and usually only lasts about seven minutes. The exercise stress level test requires the patient to get onto a treadmill or an exercise bike while hooked up to an EKG monitor. The person’s heart statistics are taken before the test begins and are taken throughout the test as the intensity of the exercise is increased. The technician checks in with the patient to see how he is doing throughout the test, making sure that he does not have any pain or dizziness that could indicate the test should be ended. Once the stress level test is over, the doctor is given the results of the EKG, blood pressure readings and heart rate readings so that he can determine the next course of action.
There are other stress level tests that are done which do not require exercise on the part of the patient. There is a test that uses either the drug dobutamine or adenosine to simulate the exercise that is done with the exercise stress level test. These drugs each cause the heart to beat as if was exercising without requiring the patient to actually do so. In this way, the doctor can still get an accurate reading of the heart when it is under different levels of stress to determine if the symptoms are from a heart condition or from stress in general.
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