Heart rate analysis in time frequency domain

Abstract

DOI: 10.1049/ic.2009.0156 ISBN: 978-1-84919-193-7 Location: Maharashtra, India Conference date: 19-20 Sept. 2009 Format: PDF Analysis of heart rate variation has become a popular noninvasive tool for assessing the activities of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Heart rate variability (HRV) refers to the beat-to-beat alterations in heart rate. HRV analysis is based on the concept that, fast fluctuations reflects the changes of sympathetic and vagal activity which effects in variability of intervals between R waves i.e. "RR intervals". The heart rate is analyzed using the various time domain parameters and frequency domain parameters. Initially R peaks are detected from the ECG and RR interval signal is obtained which is further used to get the HRV signal. Spectral analysis of this HRV signal is done to estimate the power content in different frequency bands. Two frequency bands plays a vital role in the power spectrum, a low frequency and a high frequency. Simultaneously, for time domain analysis, parameters such as mean of RR interval signal, standard deviation, coefficient of variance, root mean square of standard deviation are evaluated from RR interval signal and analyzed for different arrhythmias. It is observed that mean of RR interval signal and coefficient of variance plays an important role and can be used in classification along with the power content in low and high frequency bands. The method is applied to normal, ST change, CU Ventricular Tachyarrhythmia, Malignant ventricular arrhythmia signals. In this work, the different linear and frequency domain parameters evaluated show a particular range for various cardiac arrhythmias. (5 pages) Inspec keywords: time-frequency analysis; electrocardiography; medical signal processing Subjects: Signal processing and detection; Electrical activity in neurophysiological processes; Electrodiagnostics and other electrical measurement techniques; Bioelectric signals