What an Echocardiogram Can Reveal About Your Heart

So you’ve been recommended for an echocardiogram, and one of the first thoughts on your mind might be, “What’s wrong with me?” However, though an echocardiogram looks at your heart, it doesn’t always mean you have a serious heart problem. 

In many cases, your test is to rule out serious problems to help the diagnosis of an actual condition. Other times, the echocardiogram is simply observational, such as checking on the heart of a fetus during pregnancy. 

At Bridgewater Primary Care & Cardiology in West Bridgewater, Massachusetts, echocardiograms are an important part of our diagnostic tool kit. To help you understand this test and its purposes, we’ve prepared this month’s blog post to show you what an echocardiogram can reveal about your heart. 

The targets of an echocardiogram

Using harmless ultrasound technology, echocardiograms provide a noninvasive way to show how blood moves through the heart, including the performance of heart chambers and valves. It’s a standard test when you have symptoms like chest pain and shortness of breath. 

What an echocardiogram can reveal about your heart

There are different types of echocardiograms, each with its optimal applications. The most common is the transthoracic echocardiogram (TTE). When we place the ultrasound transceiver over your chest, it gives good general insight into heart performance. 

A transesophageal echocardiogram (TEE) is often the choice to get a detailed observation of the aorta, the body’s main artery. A TEE provides more detailed imaging than a TTE. 

Fetal echocardiograms evaluate the heart function of a baby prior to birth. While it’s not usually part of routine prenatal ultrasounds, we can add  it if the need arises. It’s completely safe for the baby and mother. 

Stress echocardiograms provide before-and-after evaluations of heart performance under stress. Using drugs or exercise, we raise your heart rate and look for changes between resting and active conditions. 

Let’s take a look at an echocardiogram’s specific tasks, broken down by category: 

Symptom evaluation

• Arrhythmia (irregular heartbeats)
• Chest pain
• Fatigue
• Heart murmurs (unusual heart sounds)
• Leg swelling
• Shortness of breath

Diagnosis and evaluation of heart conditions

• Aortic aneurysm (bulging of the walls of the aorta)
• Cardiomyopathy
• Congenital heart defects
• Heart failure
• Infective endocarditis
• Pericardial disease
• Valve dysfunction

Monitoring heart health after an event

• After a heart attack, to assess damage and monitor heart performance
• Following surgeries or heart treatments
• After heart transplants or valve replacements, to ensure the procedure produces the desired results. 

Before surgeries, echocardiograms can ensure that a patient’s body is capable of withstanding the demands. 

As you can see, an echocardiogram is a powerful and versatile diagnostic tool. With our own echocardiography facilities onsite, Bridgewater Primary Care & Cardiology is your convenient go-to source for echocardiogram services. 

Call or click to book your appointment with our West Bridgewater office today.