The patient goes about his or her usual daily activities while wearing a small, portable tape recorder that connects to the disks on the patient's chest. The patient wears the tape recorder and disks over a period of a few days to several weeks. When the patient feels an arrhythmia, he or she telephones a monitoring station where the record is made. If access to a telephone is not possible, the patient has the option of activating the monitor's memory function. Later, when a telephone is accessible, the patient can transmit the recorded information from the memory to the monitoring station.
Transtelephonic monitoring can reveal arrhythmias that occur only once every few days or weeks.
A test for arrhythmias that involves cardiac catheterization. This procedure allows doctors to find the site and type of arrhythmia and how it responds to treatment. Many arrhythmias require no treatment whatsoever. Serious arrhythmias are treated in several ways depending on what is causing the arrhythmia. Sometimes the heart disease is treated to control the arrhythmia.