Electrocardiogram

V. R. Gupta
Department of Electronics Engineering
Shri Ramdeobaba College of Engineering and Management, Nagpur.

Acknowledgement
Few slides of this presentation is taken from the
presentation of Dr Subroto Mandal, MD, DM, DC,
Associate Professor, Cardiology.

HISTORY
1842- Italian scientist Carlo Matteucci realizes that
electricity is associated with the heart beat

1876- Irish scientist Marey

pattern of frogs heart

analyzes the electric

1895 - William Einthoven , credited for the invention

of EKG

1906 - using the string electrometer EKG,

William Einthoven diagnoses some heart problems

William Einthoven invented the electrocardiograph and

awarded the nobel prize in 1924

Electrocardiogram (ECG)

The electrical activity associated with the functioning of

the heart

Quasi-periodical,

rhythmically

repeating

signal

synchronized by the function of the heart, which acts as a

generator of bioelectric events.

The recorded ECG waveforms

are standardized in

terms of amplitude and phase relationships .

Heart has its own system for generating and conducting

action potentials.

Pacemakers of the Heart

SA Node - Dominant pacemaker with an intrinsic
rate of 60 - 100 beats/minute.

AV Node - Back-up pacemaker with an intrinsic rate

of 40 - 60 beats/minute.
Ventricular cells - Back-up pacemaker with an
intrinsic rate of 20 - 45 bpm.

Impulse Conduction & the ECG

Sinoatrial node
AV node

Bundle of His
Bundle Branches

Purkinje fibers

The PR Interval
Atrial depolarization
+
delay in AV junction
(AV node/Bundle of His)

(delay allows time for the

atria to contract before
the ventricles contract)

The Intrinsic Conduction System

of Heart

The sequence of depolarization and repolarization of the heart related

to the deflection waves of an ECG tracing.

The ECG Paper

The ECG Paper

Horizontally
One small box - 0.04 s
One large box - 0.20 s

Vertically
One large box - 0.5 mV

NORMAL ECG

Electrocardiograph

ECG Leads
Bipolar Leads :

ECG Leads
Einthoven Triangle:
At any given instant of the cardiac cycle, the electrical axis of the heart can be
represented as a two dimensional vector
ECG measured from any of the three basic limb leads is a time-variant singledimensional component of the vector.

ECG Leads
Unipolar Leads :
Limb leads
Precordial Leads

Image Source:
https://www.google.co.in/search?q=ecg+waveform&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=662&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X
&ved=0ahUKEwiAx9yU7vfPAhVCLo8KHVfSALkQ_AUIBigB#tbm=isch&q=ecg+lead+placement+in+females&imgrc=
NMRreOO6ZXrYfM%3A

Image Source:
https://www.google.co.in/search?q=ecg+waveform&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=662&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X
&ved=0ahUKEwiAx9yU7vfPAhVCLo8KHVfSALkQ_AUIBigB#tbm=isch&q=normal+ecg+waveform&imgrc=ZkyMl12Of
wPJVM%3A

References

Handbook of Biomedical Instrumentation by R. S. Khandpur, 3rd edition, McGraw Hill

Education.

Biomedical Instrumentation and Measurement by Cromwell, L., Weibell F.J, Pfeiffer,

Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, New jersey, 1973.

Medical Instrumentation Application and Design by J. G. Webster, John Wiley and Sons,
4th Edition, 2009.

Human Anatomy & Physiology by Elaine N. Marieb, Katja Hoehn , 9th edition, Pearson,

2013.

Thank You

Have a Good Day