A Pulse Oximeter Can Detect Abnormal Heart Rates Early
Using a pulse oximeter is a great way of staying healthy as these devices help to keep track of your heartbeat. Your heart is responsible for pumping blood around your body. This helps move oxygen and other vital elements through your body. To do this, a healthy heart beats with a certain rhythm that is determined by electrical pulses in the heart. When something goes wrong with this process, it can lead to a variety of conditions that are associated with an irregular heartbeat. However, using a pulse oximeter can help you detect abnormalities in your heartbeat and ensure that you take the right precautions early enough. Here is everything you need to know about this issue.
What are Pulse Oximeters?
Pulse oximeters are devices that use infrared light to assess the amount of oxygen in your blood. Apart from oxygen levels, pulse oximeters are also used to measure heart rate. They are typically small devices that are clipped to the end of a finger in order to beam these infrared rays onto the finger. Using a pulse oximeter is easy and anyone buying the device from a reputable pulse oximeter seller will be shown how to use it. This makes it convenient for anyone who needs to keep track of these vital parameters to carry out tests at home or in the office.
Understanding What a Normal Heart Rate Is
One of the things that many people don’t understand is that heart rate refers to your resting heart rate. As you move and expend energy, your heart beats faster in order to compensate for the motion. If you used this increased heart rate as a measure of how healthy your heart is, you would get a false figure. Instead, doctors go for the resting heart rate which refers to the heart rate when you are at rest. You are thus able to capture your heart rate as it is when you are doing everyday activities.
For adults, including older children, the normal heart rate is between 60-100 BPM (beats per minute). Young children have faster BPMs so for example, children between 1-3 years have a BMP of between 80 and 130. As you can see, ‘normal’ heart rates decline as people grow older.
Factors that Influence Heart Rate
While the parameters given above hold true for most people, the rate that the heartbeats can also be influenced by external factors. For example, professional athletes have significantly lower heart rates (40-60 beats per minute). Genetic factors also play a part as does medication, chronic disorders, and many other factors.
Abnormalities Affecting Heart Rate
If your resting heart rate is below the normal parameters, it does not necessarily mean that you have a medical condition. However, if you keep coming up with the same abnormal heart rate when you use your pulse oximeter, it might be worth investigating further. For example, some people experience bursts of abnormal heart rates which come down after a while. During such sessions, the heart beats faster (may go well over 100 BPM), and the victim experiences shortness of breath, tightness in the chest, and dizziness.