Wombat,

The person you need to first consult is your physician, not anyone here.  The primary concern should be whether the stress of an examination might adversely affect your health as a result of your condition.  Your examiner will likely ask for your doctor's input once you disclose your condition, so it would expedite the process if you had already discussed it with your care provider.  

If you're concerned about the effect on the exam; the only way to determine that, is by taking the exam. The cardio tracing is only one of three components observed.  If the condition is so disruptive to the tracings, the examiner could either try to make a call using primarily the other two components, or discontinue the exam. The examiner should be evaluating the charts for possible problems caused by a disorder as he collects the charts.  

Sudden changes in heart rate or patterns such as PVC's would only be considered deceptive response if they occurred consitently, and only, at certain questions.  In other words, don't be concerned that if the situation of the test makes your heart "flutter," you are going to "fail."  If these changes are happening randomly, or everywhere, this will not be taken into account.  This indicates a chronic condition or a response to the overal stressfulness of the exam.  Such a cardio patterns would only be seen as deceptive response if only certain questions brought them on.

I have run numerous exams on persons with heart conditions.  One I had to discontinue, one was inconclusive due to inability to get usable charts.  These were extreme cases -- conditions stemming from damage resultant of a past cardiac event.  The one I discontinued was due to my concerns for the person's health, though his physician had cleared him.  

The main concern I have in such a situation is the physical well-being of the examinee.  Though one poster on this site advocated killing examiners, we do not have any similar feelings for examinees.  Not even close.  

Likely, if your condition does not limit your day to day activities to any major extent, and does not require medication, you should be suitable for examination.  But again, your physician should first evaluate if any threat to your health could result.

Good luck.

saidme.
specificaly i am reffering to a condition called Arrhythmia.
got any thoughts on this? its a condition were the persons heart beat/pulse can either go rapidly up or down. usualy goes up quite exesivly when stressed.
could this affect the test?
(heart attack is quite different. there is no reason why a person after a heart attack could not do a test. here we are talking about a constantly irregular heart beat).

Wombat

"Heart problems" is pretty vague.  Would I test someone who has had bypass surgery in the recent past?  No.  I have polygraphed a male in his mid 50's who had a mild heart attack approximately one month prior to the test.  The test was conducted with the  concurrence of his doctor.  He was NDI by the way (no countermeasures) which was verified when the subject was identified and ultimately confessed to the offense at hand.

Wombat,

I think that Dr. Zelicoff's observation that I cited above adequately answers your question.

saidme,
its coming up soon....
do you have an answer to my question?have you encounterd people that cant do the test for some heart problems? 

george,
i get what your saying. but have you seen any were info on the issue of how an irregular heart rayte would affect the test?
(my heart rate is some times around 60 and some times around 100. the change can come quite suddenly).

Here is what the International Association of Chiefs of Police model polygraph policy states regarding medical conditions and polygraph examinations:

Quote:


Pretty vague, huh?

As Dr. Alan P. Zelicoff, M.D., has noted, "there are no guidelines, articles, or textbook chapters anywhere in the medical, psychiatric and psychology literature on 'medical contra-indications to the polygraph.'"

In practice, it seems that most polygraph operators simply follow the practice recently described by "guest from canada" who observed, "All that mattered to the polygrapher was that I had an arm with a pulse."

Wombat

When are you taking this exam?  We've been talking about it for some time now.  I'm curious to hear the outcome (as I stated previously).

i belive the condition is called Arrhythmia.

are there any medical conditions that would prevent a person from taking a polygraph. and i dont mean if you are mortaly ill.
if a person had an irregular heart beat, meaning that some times its low, sometimes high. and that it is especialy erratic when under stress.
any thoughts?