Having a cardiac MRI Scan

Transcript

Hi, my name is Claudia and today we are at the Department of Medical Imaging and Nuclear Medicine.  I am going to show you what happens when you need an MRI scan of your heart.

For this scan, you will need to lie on this bed.  The Radiographer will then wipe your skin and then place these special dots on your chest.  The Radiographer will then wrap a special camera around your chest like a blanket. This helps the Radiographer to get a really nice picture of your heart.  You will then move into the middle of the doughnut.

It is very important that you do not move when you are in this position.  Now is the most important part of the scan.  When we breathe in and out our lungs and chest are moving.  This will make the heart look blurry.  To help with this you need to hold your breath when you are getting your picture taken.

The Radiographer will tell you to breathe in, breathe all the way out and stop breathing. Each breath hold takes 5-7 seconds and gives one picture.  It is important to do the breath holds properly so the doctors have a good set of pictures.  Let’s practice these breath holds now.  Breathe in, breathe all the way out and stop breathing.  Make sure you practice these at home.  You will be doing at least 60-70 of them for your scan.  The scan takes at least one hour to complete.

And that’s it.  Good luck with your scan.  It’s not scary at all because you will have the friendly Radiographers looking after you for your heart MRI scan.