Halter Results

A couple weeks ago, Caleb had to wear a halter. This was a device that measured the function and beating of his heart over an entire twenty-four hour period. The results of that test is that he has "sinus taccycardia". The folks at CHOPS tell us that it is normal. Here is an article we found here

that describes this condition:

Sinus tachycardia
Sinus tachycardia is defined as sinus rhythm with a rate of greater than 100 beats/min. To be certain that sinus tachycardia is the etiology for a supraventricular tachycardia (tachycardia with its origin in the AV junction, atria or SA node), one must identify a constant single P wave for every QRS complex. Sinus tachycardia usually represents a physiologic response to fever, intravascular volume depletion, hypermetabolism, anxiety or the administration of pharmacologic agents that dramatically increase sinus rate, such as catecholamines. Sinus tachycardia may also be a response to severe emotional distress, fright and strenuous exercise. Other causes may include a response to anemia, CHF, hemorrhage, extensive heart muscle damage associated with a reduction in cardiac output and pulmonary embolism. Physiologically, sinus tachycardia results from either vagal withdrawal and/or endogenous release of catecholamines.

One should not treat sinus tachycardia per se, but instead should be concerned with the reasons for its development. Obviously, if intravascular volume depletion, fright, fever or sepsis is responsible for sinus tachycardia, the preferred approach is to identify the etiology and treat it, expecting the sinus tachycardia to respond to treatment of the basic abnormality. Alternatively if the sinus tachycardia is due to extensive heart muscle damage resulting from an acute MI or severe CHF, efforts must be made to support the pump function of the heart rather than to potentially depress it further with certain pharmacologic interventions. Sinus tachycardia is often an early warning sign of some altered physiologic state that should itself be identified and corrected.

Never "treat" sinus tachycardia: treat the cause of sinus tachycardia.