Echocardiography: Understanding Heart Health with Ultrasound

Echocardiography is a type of diagnostic test that uses sound waves to generate images of the heart. In its basic form, it is a non-invasive test that detects certain heart conditions as well as structural abnormalities and various dysfunctions.

Features

• The echocardiography utilizes a transducer, a device that generates sound waves, then bounces sound waves off your heart's structure and generates an image that is used by your doctor as a diagnostic tool. This is the type of technology that allows doctor's to see your unborn baby.

Types

• There are four types of echocardiography, transthuoracic, stress, transophogeal and fetal.

Features

• The transthoracic echocardiography is painless and non-invasive and bounces sound waves off your heart's structure. The stress echocardiography is part of a stress test and can detect coronary artery disease. The transesophogeal echocardiography checks the aorta and other hard-to-reach places in the heart. The fetal echocardiography looks at a fetus' heart.

Benefits

• The echocardiography allows your doctor to see the structures and functions of your heart in a painless and, for the most part, non-invasive way.

Warning

• The transesophogeal test is invasive and is a tube attached to a transducer, sound wave generator, which is guide.