Can pulse ox detect irregular heartbeat

[Sk3510]

If I am wearing a pulse ox and checking my heart rate and during that time lets say If I get an ectopic beat (Pvc or Pac) will the pulse ox show an increase in heart rate? Will that pulsating line which represents your pulse show some irregularity? Lets say what if I get 3 or 4 rapid beats will the pulse ox show a much more increase in heart rate?

[erijon]

No, a pulse oxygen meter won't capture that. If you have a heart rate monitor that shows a tracing it can be seen. It looks like a pause followed by a hard beat, pretty interesting.

[Sk3510]

Thank you for your reply. The pulse ox monitor has a pulsating line that pulses with every heart beat. Then it also displays the heart rate. I think the monitor counts the number of beats the infrared light detects within 5 seconds and calculates the approximate heart rate and reports it . So I am thinking that if someone gets an extra beat or a complete skip beat while they are looking at the pulse ox monitor then wouldnt the number of heart beats within 5 seconds either increase or decrease which should either speed up the pulse or slow the pulse briefly. Also the pulsating line will pulsate twice very fast if an extra beat came or it will just pause if it is a very early beat which wasnt transmited to the finger pulse. This is what i think, please tell me if i am wrong. thank you

[Sk3510]

Thank you for your reply. The pulse ox monitor has a pulsating line that pulses with every heart beat. Then it also displays the heart rate. I think the monitor counts the number of beats the infrared light detects within 5 seconds and calculates the approximate heart rate and reports it . So I am thinking that if someone gets an extra beat or a complete skip beat while they are looking at the pulse ox monitor then wouldnt the number of heart beats within 5 seconds either increase or decrease which should either speed up the pulse or slow the pulse briefly. Also the pulsating line will pulsate twice very fast if an extra beat came or it will just pause if it is a very early beat which wasnt transmited to the finger pulse. This is what i think, please tell me if i am wrong. thank you

[circadrt]

When people get a PVC or a PAB it can speed up the heart temporarily, which would show if you were wearing a device that showed a running graph or number for your heart rate. On an EKG it shows as a dip in one part of the EKG strip. If you have what are called "runs" or "salvos" of PVCs or PABs of course it will speed up your heart a bit more and be more obvious on a rhythm strip or an EKG, etc.

If you get what is called "bigeminy" (two beats close together that are out of synch) the pause will be longer, since it is two premature beats, versus a single beat. A few people actually can get "trigeminy" where three beats are out of synch, but that is much rarer. This pattern can be two normal (sinus) beats and one abnormal one. Another trigeminy pattern is two PVCs with one sinus beat. Again, fairly rare.