HEARTBEAT MONITORING DEVICE, SYSTEM AND METHOD

• US 20090209873A1
• Filed: 07/05/2007
• Published: 08/20/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 07/14/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Pinter, Robert, Habetha, Joerg, Reiter, Harald
• Application Number:
  US12/373,089
• Publication Number:
  US 20090209873A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 600/509
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0006 ECG or EEG signals
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/02438 with portable devices, e.g. worn by the patient
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0245 by using sensing means generating electric signals, i.e. ECG signals

Abstract

A heartbeat monitoring device (2) comprises: —a number of electrodes (3.1, 3.2) for sensing an ECG signal (SO) of a user (5), —a signal processing means (14) for processing a signal (S2) derived from the ECG signal and adapted to extract information related to the heartbeat of the user from the derived signal, —a standardized wireless communication module (11) for transmitting said heartbeat-related information to an external device (17). In the proposed heartbeat monitoring device the signal-processing means is implemented on a communications processor of the standardized wireless communication module.

Claims

1. A heartbeat monitoring device (2), comprising:

a number of electrodes (3.1, 3.2) for sensing an ECG signal (S0) of a user (5),

a signal-processing means (14) for processing a signal (S2) derived from the ECG signal and adapted to extract information related to the heartbeat of the user from the derived signal,

a standardized wireless communication module (11) for transmitting said heartbeat-related information to an external device (17),

wherein the signal-processing means (14) is implemented on a communications processor (12) of the standardized wireless communication module (11).

2. The device (2) of claim 1, further comprising an analogue/digital converter (10) for sampling the ECG signal (S0;

S1, S1′

, S1″

) to provide a digital signal (S2) as the derived signal.

3. The device (2) of claim 1, characterized in that the standardized wireless communication module (11) is a Bluetooth module.

4. The device (2) of claim 1, characterized in that at least the electrodes (3.1, 3.2) are integrated in a chest belt (7) to be worn around the chest of the user (5).

5. The device (2) of claim 1, further comprising ECG signal amplifying and filtering means (8, 9) arranged between the electrodes (3.1, 3.2) and the signal processing means (14).

6. A heartbeat monitoring system (1), comprising:

the heartbeat monitoring device (2) claim 1,

an external device (17) adapted to receive said heartbeat-related information from the standardized wireless communication module (11) of the heartbeat monitoring device (2).

7. The system (1) of claim 6, characterized in that the external device (17) is a mobile phone, a hand-held computer, a PC, or the like.

8. A method of providing heartbeat-related information to an external device (17), the method comprising:

sensing an ECG signal (S0) of a user (5),

processing a signal (S2) derived from said ECG signal (S0;

S1, S1′

, S1″

) to extract therefrom heartbeat-related information of the user (5),

transmitting the heartbeat-related information using a standardized wireless communication protocol (13) implemented on a communications processor (12) to the external device (17),

wherein said processing of the derived signal (S2) is performed on the communications processor (12).

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising sampling and converting the ECG signal (S0;

S1, S1′

, S1″

) into a digital signal (S2) constituting the derived signal prior to said processing.

10. The method of claim 8, characterized in that processing the derived signal (S2) comprises:

extracting an indication of peaks in the ECG signal (S0;

S1, S1′

, S1″

),

determining time intervals between subsequent heartbeats from said indication,

calculating the inverse of said time intervals.