A portable spatial monitoring system for autonomous heart diagnosis

Abstract

Heart disorders are one of the most problematic issues of human health. There are currently many efforts to reduce the time for first assistance based on electronic systems that continuously records the electric heart activity for further inspection and anomalies detection. The most popular are portable monitoring systems based on the Electrocardiogram (ECG) signal. However, an efficient detection of heart problems still being a big challenge mainly due to the difficulty of accessing some specific cardiac problems and signal variations between different patients. A different technique for heart diagnosing is based on spatial recording of electrical heart activity, commonly known as Vectorcardiogram (VCG). VCG is pointed by several authors as a more efficient tool than ECG for heart inspection and problem detection. This research explores the possibility of using VCG signals in a portable device for constant heart monitoring and injuries detection. It is presented a portable solution with VCG recording and digital signal processing for automatic diagnosis. This paper covers the aspects of the VCG signal and its ability to be converted into a 12-lead ECG signal. It is also presented a system for automatic diagnosis based on VCG which is based on a multichannel portable hardware platform to support noise cancellation, parameter extraction and decision making algorithms.