Heart monitoring apparatus and method
First Claim
1. Heart monitoring apparatus comprising:
- detection means for obtaining an electrocardiograph signal from a patient during a monitoring phase,preprocessing means for processing said electrocardiograph signal to enhance the salient features of the electrocardiograph signal and suppress the noise, and to generate a plurality n of values representative of the features of said electrocardiograph signal,storage means for storing a plurality m of n dimensional reference vectors;
Kohonen neural network means for receiving said plurality of values during the monitoring phase, for forming an n dimensional vector from said plurality of values and for comparing said n dimensional vector with said stored plurality m of n dimensional reference vectors defining an n dimensional Kohonen feature map to determine the proximity of said n dimensional vector to said reference vectors, andoutput means for outputting a signal if said Kohonen neural network means determines that said n dimensional vector is within or beyond a threshold range of said reference vectors.
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Abstract
A heart monitoring apparatus and method is disclosed wherein an electrocardiograph signal is obtained from a patient and processed to enhance the salient features and to suppress noise. A plurality n of values representative of the features of the electrocardiograph signal are generated and used in a Kohonen neural network to generate an n dimensional vector. This vector is compared with a stored plurality m of n dimensional reference vectors defining an n dimensional Kohonen feature map to determine the proximity of the vector to the reference vectors. If it is determined by the Kohonen neural network that the vector is within or beyond a threshold range of the reference vectors a signal is output which can be used to initiate an event such as the generation of an alarm or the storage of ECG data.
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Citations
74 Claims
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1. Heart monitoring apparatus comprising:
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detection means for obtaining an electrocardiograph signal from a patient during a monitoring phase, preprocessing means for processing said electrocardiograph signal to enhance the salient features of the electrocardiograph signal and suppress the noise, and to generate a plurality n of values representative of the features of said electrocardiograph signal, storage means for storing a plurality m of n dimensional reference vectors; Kohonen neural network means for receiving said plurality of values during the monitoring phase, for forming an n dimensional vector from said plurality of values and for comparing said n dimensional vector with said stored plurality m of n dimensional reference vectors defining an n dimensional Kohonen feature map to determine the proximity of said n dimensional vector to said reference vectors, and output means for outputting a signal if said Kohonen neural network means determines that said n dimensional vector is within or beyond a threshold range of said reference vectors. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38)
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39. A heart monitoring method comprising the steps of:
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obtaining an electrocardiograph signal from a patient during a monitoring phase, preprocessing the electrocardiograph signal to enhance the salient features of the electrocardiograph signal and suppress the noise, and to generate a plurality n of values representative of the features of the electrocardiograph signal, forming an n dimensional vector from said plurality n of values, comparing the n dimensional vector with a stored plurality m of n dimensional reference vectors defining an n dimensional Kohonen feature map to determine the proximity of the n dimensional vector to said reference vectors, and outputting a signal if it is determined that the n dimensional vector is within or beyond a threshold range of said reference vectors. - View Dependent Claims (40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71)
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72. Heart monitoring apparatus comprising:
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input means for receiving an electrocardiograph signal from a patient; preprocessing means for processing said electrocardiograph signal to suppress the noise and extract important features of the electrocardiograph signal to obtain an n dimensional vector comprising a plurality n of values representative of the important features of said electrocardiograph signal; storage means for storing a plurality m of n dimensional reference vectors; neural network means for receiving said n dimensional vector, for comparing said n dimensional vector with said stored plurality m of n dimensional reference vectors defining an n dimensional volume to determine the proximity of said n dimensional vector to said n dimensional volume, and for outputting an indication of whether said n dimensional vector lies within or beyond a threshold range of said n dimensional volume. - View Dependent Claims (73)
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74. Heart monitoring apparatus comprising:
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measuring means for measuring the activity of a patient'"'"'s heart and outputting an electrocardiograph signal during a learning phase and a monitoring phase; preprocessing means for processing said electrocardiograph signal to extract important features therefrom to generate an n dimensional vector comprising a plurality n of values representative of the features of the electrocardiograph signal; and Kohonen neural network means for, during the learning phase, using said n dimensional vector to generate an n dimensional Kohonen feature map with a plurality m of reference vectors defining a normal range of electrocardiograph features for said patient, and for during the monitoring phase, comparing said n dimensional vector with said plurality of m dimensional reference vectors defining the n dimensional Kohonen feature map to determine the proximity of said n dimensional vector to said reference vectors, and to output a signal if it is determined that said n dimensional vector is within or beyond a threshold range of said reference vectors.
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Specification