Detection of ventricular ectopy by a novel miniature electrocardiogram recorder

Heart Rate Variability: An Old Metric with New Meaning in the Era of using mHealth Technologies for Health and Exercise Training Guidance. Part One: Physiology and Methods

The autonomic nervous system plays a major role in optimising function of the cardiovascular (CV) system, which in turn has important implications for CV health. Heart rate variability (HRV) is a measurable reflection of this balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic tone and has been used as a marker for cardiac status and predicting CV outcomes. Recently, the availability of commercially available heart rate (HR) monitoring systems has had important CV health implications and permits ambulatory CV monitoring on a scale not achievable with traditional cardiac diagnostics. The focus of the first part of this two-part review is to summarise the physiology of HRV and to describe available technologies for HRV monitoring. Part two will present HRV measures for assessing CV prognosis and athletic training.

Comparing twelve-lead electrocardiography with close-to-heart patch based electrocardiography

Electrocardiographic (ECG) recording using adhesive patch-type ECG monitors (PEMs) has several advantages over conventional ECG recorders. However, due to the unconventional electrode locations used in PEM systems, the morphology of the acquired ECG signals may differ from conventional ECG leads used in the clinic impeding clinical interpretation. In this study, recordings from an ePatch® lead system involving three torso sites are compared with concurrently recorded standard 12-lead ECG. Pearson's correlation coefficients (CC) of -0.90 and 0.91 is found between two of the PEM signals and the standard 12-lead ECG signals aVR and V2, respectively. Deriving the 12-lead ECG from the PEM leads through linear transforms on a subject-specific basis yield CC values ranging from 0.78 to 0.96 between measured and derived leads. The corresponding CC values for the PEM ECG leads range from 0.88 to 0.95. It is found that the PEM lead system captures "residual" information not contained in the standard 12-lead ECG and i.a. a negative deflection after the T-wave is discovered in the PEM signals.