Cardiac testing is used to detect and diagnose heart disease, and the goal is to find cardiovascular disease at its earliest stage. Depending on the patient’s condition, cardiac testing may include blood tests, imaging tests and genetic tests. If your physician or cardiologist feels that you need further testing, you may undergo other procedures.

An echocardiogram is an ultrasound that is performed on the heart. The purpose of an ultrasound of the heart is to understand the structures, as well as the function of the heart in terms of its pumping function, its relaxation properties, and how well the one-way valves work.

A stress test is an assessment of someone’s physiological or aerobic reserve, and a fairly good assessment of a person’s hemodynamic and circulatory response to exercise.

A Holter monitor is a test that’s performed in order to understand the rhythms of the heart. After the 24-hour testing period, all of the heartbeats that are generated by the patient are captured by the Holter monitor, and the healthcare team downloads and interprets it.

The most common algorithm that’s used on a treadmill stress test is something called the BRUCE protocol.