Patient Care Technician (PCT) AAH Practice Exam

Disable ads (and more) with a membership for a one time $2.99 payment

Prepare for the Patient Care Technician (PCT) AAH Exam. Study with flashcards and multiple choice questions, complete with hints and explanations. Get ready to excel in your exam!

Each practice test/flash card set has 50 randomly selected questions from a bank of over 500. You'll get a new set of questions each time!

Practice this question and more.


How can you determine whether the atrial rhythm on an ECG tracing is regular or irregular?

  1. Compare Q to Q intervals

  2. Assess the heart rate

  3. Compare P to P intervals

  4. Examine the T wave morphology

The correct answer is: Compare P to P intervals

To determine whether the atrial rhythm on an ECG tracing is regular or irregular, assessing the intervals between the P waves is crucial. By comparing the P to P intervals, you can effectively identify any variations in the timing of the atrial depolarization. If the intervals are consistent, the atrial rhythm is considered regular. Conversely, if the intervals differ significantly, this indicates an irregular rhythm. Other options involve different aspects of the ECG that do not directly assess atrial rhythm. For instance, while examining Q to Q intervals is relevant for assessing ventricular rhythms, it does not provide information about the atrial rhythm specifically. Assessing the heart rate focuses more on the speed of the overall rhythm rather than its regularity. Lastly, examining the T wave morphology pertains to ventricular repolarization and is not indicative of atrial rhythm regularity. Each of these focuses on different components of the ECG rather than the specific relationship between P waves.