Method for classifying and localizing heart arrhythmias

A method of analyzing a cardiac signal, comprising:

• providing a digital template and a digitized cardiac signal with sufficient fidelity and resolution to facilitate identification of atrial fibrillatory components of activity from distinct regions of the heart and further having sufficient fidelity and resolution to facilitate identification of the atrial fibrillatory components as originating from a left side or a right side of the heart, the identification being sufficient to facilitate a separation of atrial tachycardia, atrial fibrillation, atrial flutter and ventricular tachycardia, the digitized cardiac signal comprising a plurality of amplitudes corresponding to consecutive time samples, wherein the time samples span a plurality of cardiac cycles;
• generating a plurality of correlation values correlating the digital template to successive time samples of the cardiac signal, wherein a plurality of correlation values are generated for each cardiac cycle that contain information necessary to identify and differentiate distinct components of activity and to discern whether those components have origins in the left or right sides of the heart;
• mapping the correlation values;
• and
• identifying a treatable disease, based upon the mapping of the correlation values.