Cardiac Stress Testing

This test may be right for you if you have symptoms of heart disease, like:

• Angina – chest pain or discomfort due to poor blood flow to the heart.
• Arrhythmia – a rapid or irregular heartbeat.
• Shortness of breath (dyspnea). 
• Feeling lightheaded or dizzy.

Stress tests are also for people with a heart disease diagnosis who:

• Would like to start exercising.
• Are undergoing treatment, and healthcare providers need to determine how well it’s working.
• Face a higher risk of complications due to a personal or family history of heart disease.
• Have diabetes or other underlying conditions that increase your risk of heart disease.
• Require non-cardiac surgery, and healthcare providers need to assess your risk of complications.

Providers may also do stress tests in people without known heart disease or symptoms to assess their risk for heart disease and heart attacks, especially if they have other risk factors like diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or a family history of premature heart disease.

If there are no contraindications, exercise stress tests are safe. Very few people experience complications. Trained healthcare providers, typically an exercise physiologist and a cardiologist, are present during your test in the rare event that you have a complication. They assess your performance, data, and symptoms throughout the tests and immediately provide emergency treatment if it’s needed. You also have the option of stopping the stress test at any time if you become anxious or uncomfortable.

If your healthcare provider recommends cardiac rehabilitation, the program may include stress testing. Rehabilitation is a medically supervised exercise program that helps people with heart disease become more physically active.

Cardiac rehabilitation stress testing includes:

• Entrance stress test: Helps the rehabilitation team develop an exercise program that’s appropriate for your capabilities.
• Exit stress test: Enables the team to measure your progress and create a long-term exercise program after you complete rehabilitation. 

You receive medications through a vein in your arm (intravenously). The medications simulate the effects of exercise on your heart by making it pump harder and faster. It can take up to an hour for you to start feeling the effects.

After completing or stopping the test, healthcare providers monitor your symptoms, heart rate, blood pressure and ECG until it returns to a normal range. This takes about 15 minutes. Once your heart rate has recovered, you are free to go home.