Hi Deb

Not sure, I think a holter monitor is one that records everything for the amount of time you have to wear it and a event monitor is one that only record when you press your button.

I'm sure someone else will know.

Kath x

Event recorders are typically worn for extended periods, whereas Holter monitors are more for short-range evaluation, typically 24 hours. Below is an excerpt from an article in one of my journals and I believe it may provide you with an extended explanation. Please be aware, however, that this is but one article from one research group alone and not a consensus by the medical community.


Event Recorder vs. Holter Monitor

Cardiologists are often asked to evaluate patients with palpitations; the main concern is whether a treatable and/or serious arrhythmia is responsible. The traditional diagnostic tool is the 24- or 48-hour Holter monitor, but sensitivity may be limited by the relatively short period of monitoring.

Therefore, these Australian investigators studied 43 patients (88% women; mean age, 45) presenting to the Holter lab because of palpitations. Using a randomized crossover design, patients underwent both 48-hour Holter monitoring and three months of transtelephonic cardiac event recorder monitoring. The cardiac event recorder is a device the patient wears continuously for an extended period, activating its recorder when symptoms occur in order to transmit the cardiac rhythm.

For the cardiac event monitor at least one recording occurred during symptoms for 67% of patients, compared with only 35% during Holter monitoring. Furthermore, clinically significant arrhythmias were found in 19% of the cardiac event monitor recordings, but in none of the Holter monitor recordings. On sophisticated cost-effectiveness analyses, authors found that event recorders result in a $213 saving per clinical outcome identified. The superior cost-effectiveness of event recorders persisted even after a variety of sensitivity analyses.

Comment: These data argue that event recording is a better diagnostic tool for evaluating patients with palpitations; the longer time of monitoring and the symptom-oriented collection of data lead to a greater sensitivities for correlating symptoms with rhythm and detecting clinically significant arrhythmias. Despite the longer monitoring period, the event recorder also appears to be more cost-effective.

— MS Lauer

Published in Journal Watch Cardiology February 1, 1996


Best regards and Good Health