Diagnostic criteria

  Although it resembles the tremor artifact, careful inspection of the tracing reveals its regularity.

  The deflections of tremor artifact do not resemble each other, creating irregular irregularity.

  On the other hand, the undesirable deflections observed in 50/60 Hz artifact have regularity.

      These deflections (spikes) resemble each other and 50 or 60 of them are observed in 1 second.



How to prevent 50/60 Hz AC interference artifact

  Patient's hands and feet should touch only to the mattress during ECG recording.

  There should be no electrical instrument in touch with the patient's bed

      or the instrument should be unplugged during the ECG recording.

  There should be no electrical cable passing over the patient or over the bed.




Figure 1. There are 50 spikes of similar shape in 1 second.





ECG 1. AC 50/60 Hz interference artifact in another patient is shown. When the artifact in C5 is magnified, it is clearly shown
that there are 50 spikes of (similar shape) in 1 second.

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ECG 2. Not the amplitude but the frequency is important in diagnosing the 50/60 Hz AC interference artifact . The amplitude
may vary throughout the ECG.

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ECG 3. This is another >50/60 Hz AC interference artifact with larger amplitude spikes.

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ECG 4. This is an 50/60 Hz AC interference artifact from a different patient. The ECG was recorded at 50 mm/seconds.

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ECG 5. 50/60 Hz AC interference artifact may be observed during Holter (ECG rhythm) monitoring
Above tracing is from a 3-channel Holter recording and depicts 50/60 Hz AC interference artifact.

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ECG 6. Leads V1 and V4 show 50/60 Hz AC interference artifact.
There are 50 spikes in 1 second, 10 spikes in 0.2 second (between two thick lines).

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