What is a tilt table test and when is it used?

Transcript

A tilt table test is a useful test when we're trying to understand why people are getting dizziness or perhaps even losing consciousness. The most common cause of these symptoms are things like vasovagal syncope, fainting, POTS, which is a form of heart rate increase called postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. And very simply, what happens on this day when you have your tilt test is that you come in, you lie flat on a motorized table, you have an ECG attached to you as well as a blood pressure cuff.

And after resting on a flat table for a matter of 10 to 15 minutes, having your heart rate, your blood pressure and your ECG recorded, you are then tilted to about 70 degrees or almost upright and kept there for about 20 minutes. And what we're interested to see is what happens to your heart rate, what happens to your blood pressure and whether we reproduce the symptoms of dizziness or perhaps even loss of consciousness. It's important to say at this stage, this is an entirely safe test.

There's no risk and it can be informative in those people where we're unsure as to the cause of loss of consciousness. In some of our patients, we may actually give you a spray of a medication called GTN to see if that reproduces your symptoms.