Abstract
Ayurvedic and other alternative medical practi-tioners throughout the world have been using pulse diagnosis to detect disease and the organ at distress by feeling the palpations at three close yet precise positions of the radial artery. This paper presents a robust electro-mechanical system, ‘Nadi Yantra’ which uses piezoelectric based pressure sensors to capture the signals from the radial artery. Morphology of the waveforms obtained from our system concurs with standard physiological arterial signals. Reproducibility and stability of the system has been verified. Signal processing techniques were applied to obtain features such as amplitude, power spectral density, bandpower and spectral centroid to reflect variations in signals from the three channels. Further, wavelet based techniques were used to process the pressure signals and percussion peaks were identified. The interval between the percussion peaks was used to calculate Heart Rate Varibility (HRV), a useful tool for assessing the status of the autonomic nervous system of the human body non-invasively. Time domain indices were calculated from direct measurement of peak-peak (PP) intervals and from differences between the PP intervals. Frequency domain indices such as very low frequency (VLF) power, low frequency (LF) power, high frequency (HF) power, LF/HF ratio were also calculated. Thereafter, nonlinear Poincare analysis was carried out. A map of consecutive PP intervals was fitted to an ellipse using least squares method. Results from 7 datasets are depicted in this paper. A novel pressure pulse recording instrument is deve loped for the objective assessment of the ancient sci-ence of pulse diagnosis. The features calculated using multi resolution wavelet analysis show potential in the evaluation of the autonomic nervous system of the human body.
Highlights
In ancient literatures of the Ayurveda, Chinese, Unani, and Greek medicine, pulse based diagnosis has its own unparalleled importance
There is enough evidence in ancient literature that there is not a single disease in the human body which cannot be diagnosed by examining the pulse
Ancient medical practitioners had to totally rely upon years of clinical experience in order to come to any conclusive diagnosis
Summary
In ancient literatures of the Ayurveda, Chinese, Unani, and Greek medicine, pulse based diagnosis has its own unparalleled importance. The organ under distress is zeroed down by feeling the palpations from the three fingers (index, middle and ring) placed on the radial artery (Figure 1). These pulsations dictate the physiological status of the entire human body [1]. Pulse has been ubiquitously accepted by modern clinicians as well. They examine the pulse using the method of trisection i.e. apply pressure until the pulse is maximal, and vary pressure while concentrating on the phases of the pulse. Alternative medicine practitioners carefully examine pulses at different depths, each connected with a specific part of the body and each believed to register even the slightest physiological based change
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