Method and apparatus for monitoring the autonomic nervous system using non-stationary spectral analysis of heart rate and respiratory activity
DCFirst Claim
1. A method for measuring activity of the autonomous nervous system of a patient comprising the steps of:
- 1) obtaining instantaneous heart rate signals of said patient;
2) computing a first power spectrum from said instantaneous heart rate signals using non-stationary signal analysis;
3) determining a level of sympathetic activity and parasympathetic activity from said power spectrum;
4) obtaining respiratory activity signals of said patient;
5) computing a second power spectrum from said respiratory signals using non-stationary signal analysis; and
,6) determining the instantaneous respiration frequency from the said second power spectrum.
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Abstract
A method and apparatus for non-invasive, real-time monitoring of the autonomic nervous systems using non-stationary spectral analysis of both heart rate and respiratory signals. Continuous wavelet transformation is used in real-time so that the dynamic interactions between the sympathetic and parasympathetic divisions of the autonomic nervous system can be independently monitored in the frequency domain. The method in accordance with the present invention allows spectral analysis, formerly limited to the study of stationary data, to be applied to time-varying biological data such as heart rate variability and respiratory activity. In addition, the same techniques are used to monitor other biological or physiological data, including blood pressure.
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Citations
28 Claims
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1. A method for measuring activity of the autonomous nervous system of a patient comprising the steps of:
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1) obtaining instantaneous heart rate signals of said patient; 2) computing a first power spectrum from said instantaneous heart rate signals using non-stationary signal analysis; 3) determining a level of sympathetic activity and parasympathetic activity from said power spectrum; 4) obtaining respiratory activity signals of said patient; 5) computing a second power spectrum from said respiratory signals using non-stationary signal analysis; and
,6) determining the instantaneous respiration frequency from the said second power spectrum. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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21. A system for measuring activity of the autonomous nervous system of a patient comprising:
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a first source providing instantaneous heart rate signals of said patient; a signal processor coupled to said first source, said processor used to compute a first power spectrum of said heart rate signal using continuous wavelet transform techniques; an output coupled to said signal processor, said output providing a visual display of said first power spectrum; and a second source providing instantaneous respiration signals, wherein said signals are processed by said processor to obtain a second power spectrum, said second spectrum displayed on said output. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28)
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Specification