Abstract
Potassium, calcium, and magnesium all play crucial roles in cardiac conduction. When these electrolytes are not at their appropriate levels, they can produce EKG patterns that clinicians should immediately recognize and treat. Hyperkalemia has a variety of manifestations including peaked T waves, depressed PR interval, and widened QRS, eventually degenerating into a sinusoidal pattern. While this pattern is classically taught in a linear continuum as the potassium increases, any of these findings can occur at any point with hyperkalemia. Hypokalemia may demonstrate a U wave. Hypercalcemia results in a shortened QT interval and can cause Osborn waves, although hypothermia more classically demonstrates them. Both hypocalcemia and hypomagnesemia as well as a variety of drugs cause a prolonged QT interval. This QT prolongation should signal to the clinician to correct the underlying issue to prevent potential ventricular tachycardia due to the R on T phenomenon.
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Tannenbaum, L., Bridwell, R.E., Inman, B.L. (2022). Electrolytes. In: EKG Teaching Rounds. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06028-1_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06028-1_5
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