Section 4: Artifacts and Troubleshooting Flashcards
The airflow channel squares rather than rounds at the peaks. What should the technician do?
Adjust the sensitivity setting to correct the pen blocking artifact.
During the night, the patient awakens and kicks off one of the leg EMG leads. What should the technician do?
Enter the patient room and replace the lead.
During physiologic calibrations, the EEG and EOG channels present a high amplitude, very slow wave artifact. What is the most appropriate course of action?
Take steps to correct sweat artifact including cooling the patient and replacing the ground lead.
During the night, the tech notices that the C3 channel appears slightly darker than the other EEG channels. What should she do first?
Run an impedance check. If the impedance in this channel is higher than 5k Ohms, the electrode should be reapplied or replaced.
Shortly after the patient wakes up, all the signals on the PSG show a high frequency, very high amplitude artifact obscuring all the tracings. What is the most appropriate course of action?
Wait for the patient to stop moving, as this is most likely movement artifact. After movement has stopped, determine if any leads have detached and reapply if necessary.
When attempting to correct an artifact, the technician notices that the artifact appears in multiple channels. What should he do next?
Check to see if there is a common reference between the affected channels.
The EEG and EOG channels present an intermittent, single, fast wave approximately every second. What is the most appropriate course of action?
Take steps to correct EKG artifact starting with moving M1 and M2 to the earlobes.
