Your doctor can't tell how well your heart is working until it's put to the test. If you have heart disease—or if you're at risk—your doctor may want to examine your heart during exercise. The stress test can spot hidden problems with your heart and help determine how much exercise you can safely handle.
Kit Cassak, 63, of Scottsdale, Ariz., had had a regular electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) test in the past, but when she experienced shortness of breath and chest, arm, and jaw pain during physical activity, her doctor referred her to a cardiologist for a stress test. "They hooked up these different electrodes pretty much like an ECG, and they got me to walk on this treadmill, which I'd done during my normal workouts. In less than two minutes they started to see something on their screens and I told them I was feeling symptoms," she says. The cardiologist immediately stopped the test and referred her to the hospital for an angiogram to look for blockages in her blood vessels. The test determined that she needed open-heart surgery.
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