High blood pressure may be an indicator of heart health problems.

We monitor blood pressure in several ways:

These are taken by our team. However, some people may experience “white coat effect”. This is anxiety caused by your visit to a doctor. If that may be the case, we may also ask you to monitor your blood pressure at home if you have a blood pressure monitor available.

Measuring your own blood pressure regularly can be helpful as it allows your doctor or nurse to see what your readings are like outside of the clinic. Keeping a personal record of your blood pressure can help to show what your blood pressure is like from day to day.

Blood pressure does not stay the same, and continuously changes depending on what we are doing. By wearing a monitor over a 24 hour period, it allows us to see what the changes are compared to your activities and lifestyle.


This test involves wearing a cuff around your arm for 24 hours which is connected to a small box (about the size of a mobile phone) which is worn around your waist. The cuff will inflate at regular intervals and when this commences you are required to put your arm down straight by your side until it deflates again. If you move your arm or bend it while the cuff is inflating, the machine will repeat the reading 5 minutes later to achieve a more accurate result. The cuff will become very tight as it inflates but this is only temporary and normal.

You will not be able to bathe, shower, use an electric blanket or magnetic underlay whilst you have the monitor on.

On the morning that you are required to return the monitor, you may disconnect it yourself (after having been shown how to do this the day before by the Nurse). It is very important to return the monitor at the time specified as the data needs to be downloaded and the monitor prepared for the next patient.

As this test is not covered by Medicare there is a small fee of $60.00 which is payable on the day. For concession card holders the fee is $ 30.00.

Blood pressure testing during an exercise stress test allows us to get a better understanding of what is happening to your heart and cardiovascular system. The results allow us to work out if there may be heart problems, and what steps may need to be taken to reduce risk of heart issues. The results may also allow us to see what effects medications, surgery and lifestyle changes are having.

It takes about 10 minutes to attach the electrodes and complete the test, but the actual recording takes only a few seconds.

We will keep your EKG patterns on file so that we can compare them to tests you get in the future. These comparisons allows us to detect changes in your heart over a period of time..