STUDY AND ANALYSIS- OF HEART RATE VARIABILITY

Abstract

The analysis of heart rate variability is a well accepted method in two fields. Firstly, in clinical situations (Particularly in the intensive .care unit), the evaluation of heart rate data can yield useful information about the condition of the patient's heart. Secondly, in the study of the neural cardiovascular system, the h.r.v often mirrors the effects of the underlying control activities and since these data can be obtained noninvasively, it . is an attractive source of information (3,8). In the present work, the ECG signal is acquired and stored at a sampling frequency of 500Hz, by retaining its all desirable features. The digitized signal is passed through a digital filter to remove its baseline wander. R-peaks of the stored signal are detected by using a template matching technique. Using R-peaks, the R-R intervals are determined and thereafter used to calculate the power spectral density (PSD) function. The PSD is plotted and seen on computer monitor to observe the shift in its spectrum under different conditions. The approach has been tested on the actual data recorded from the subjects under different conditions. The test results of this technique are consistent and reliable and show high promise for making its useful for studying the heart rate variability under varying conditions of the cardiac and cardiovascular systems.