Use of event recorders in children

Background. The usefulness of Halter monitoring to detect rarely occuring s ymptoms seems to be limited. In adults the event recorder has already been a precise diagnostic tool in evaluating palpitations and syncopes. There ha ve been few reports of the implementation of cardiac monitoring with an eve nt recorder in children. Patients and methods. We describe our experiences with event recorders in 2 7 children (mean age 13,8 years) with a history of palpitations or tachycar dias. The event recorder was applied after failing to make the diagnosis by repeated 12-lead-ECG and Holter monitoring. Results. The event recorder revealed the underlying cardiac arrhythmia in 9 (33,3%) children. Conclusions. Thus,the ability to store patients events with an event record er adds to the usual diagnostic capability with Holter monitoring. The main indication of event recorders in childhood are palpitations and paroxysmal tachycardias. A monitoring period of two weeks is reasonably effective for most children and should be the standard period. The devices provide a goo d quality of documentation and are well accepted by children.