Irregular or Regular Rhythm?
The rhythm can be described in 3 ways :
- Regular (metronome like with every beat equally spaced)
- Regularly Irregular (every beat not equaly spaced but there is a distinct pattern)
- Irregularly Irregular (sporadic pattern of beats with no clear spacing)
Regular Rhythm (sinus)
This is a regular rhythm. Look at the rhythm strip here and use a separate piece of paper to mark off the top of the QRS complexes.
If you measure the gap between them you should see that they are all practically the same.
In this case they are all just over 3 large squares in size
Regularly Irregular Rhythm
This is an example of ventricular ectopics which are extra beats added in to a normal rhythm. The third beat here (marked with a thicker line) is an ectopic beat and hence this rhythm is called trigeminy.
Notice how the the two normal beats are all equally spaced apart but the spacing between the ectopic beat and the second normal beat is smaller.
This pattern is irregular, but because it repeats itself it is known as a regularly irregular pattern
Irregularly Irregular Rhythm
Here there is no reproducible pattern of spacing between the beats.
This pattern is irregularly irregular and is the ECG tracing of atrial fibrillation
