Heart rate monitor
First Claim
1. The method of determining a heart rate from an electrocardiogram signal comprising the steps of:
- detecting the occurrence of a series of R-wave peaks in said signal at the times;
a) when said signal begins to decrease after having increased during an immediately preceding time interval at a rate of change greater than a threshold rate of change to reach a peak value, andb) when said peak value has a greater amplitude than the amplitude of said signal at any other time in said immediately preceding time interval,calculating a series of heart rate values from the durations separating adjacent ones of said detected R-wave peaks, anddiscarding any heart rate value which differs from the preceding heart rate value by more than a predetermined amount.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method for analyzing an EKG signal in real time to produce a heart rate indication. The most recent digitized samples of the EKG are stored in a buffer and evaluated to identify each R-wave peak sample value that (a) immediately precedes and is larger that the most recently stored digital sample value, (b) is larger than any other sample value in the buffer, and (c) differs from the first sample value in the buffer by more than a predetermined threshold value. The threshold is a fraction of the rise time slope of the last peak. The real time heart rate indication is calculated from the time duration separating the last two detected peaks, but rate indications outside the range of 30–200 beats per minute, and which depart from the preceding rate indication by more than 50 percent, are discarded.
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Citations
18 Claims
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1. The method of determining a heart rate from an electrocardiogram signal comprising the steps of:
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detecting the occurrence of a series of R-wave peaks in said signal at the times; a) when said signal begins to decrease after having increased during an immediately preceding time interval at a rate of change greater than a threshold rate of change to reach a peak value, and b) when said peak value has a greater amplitude than the amplitude of said signal at any other time in said immediately preceding time interval, calculating a series of heart rate values from the durations separating adjacent ones of said detected R-wave peaks, and discarding any heart rate value which differs from the preceding heart rate value by more than a predetermined amount. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
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7. A method for deriving a heart rate value from an electrocardiogram signal having a waveform exhibiting a series of R-wave peak values, said method comprising, in combination the steps of:
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producing an indication that an R-wave peak has occurred; when the amplitude of said waveform decreases immediately after reaching a given one of said peak values; when the amplitude of said given one of said peak values is larger than the amplitude of said waveform at any time in a predetermined interval immediately preceding the occurrence of said given one of said peak values, and when the rate of change of the amplitude of said waveform during said predetermined time interval is greater than a threshold value, and calculating heart rate values from the measured time interval between said peak time positions. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. The method for analyzing a continuous electrocardiogram signal to produce a numerical pulse rate indication in real time, said method comprising, in combination, the steps of:
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producing digital sample values representing samples of said signal taken at a predetermined sampling rate, storing a series of the most recently produced ones of said digital sample values, evaluating said series to identify a peak sample value that (a) immediately precedes and is larger than the most recently stored digital sample value, (b) is larger than any other sample value in said series, and (c) differs from the first sample value in said series by more than a predetermined threshold amount, and determining said numerical pulse rate indication from the time duration separating consecutive ones of said peak sample values. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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Specification