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US 7,353,057 B2Granted
Apparatus and method for detecting atrial fibrillation
AssigneeGME Rechte und Beteiligungen GmbH
InventorsEdmund Schiessle, Roland Reinhardt, Hans-Juergen Deeg, Friedhelm Soborowski
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A lightweight, battery-operated, voltage-stabilized, bioelectronic and non-invasive measuring apparatus derives the electrical heart potentials using measuring electrodes fixed to the patient and uses electronic numerical evaluation to produce therefrom an electronic risk display for safely diagnosing atrial fibrillation at the earliest possible time in the illness.
Claims16
A portable apparatus for detecting atrial fibrillation by a patient, comprising:
- a) means for repetitively obtaining a plurality of groups of n successive RR intervals from the patient's heart potentials, n being a natural number greater than 1;
- b) means for producing a patient scatter plot, each point in the patient scatter plot representing one of said groups of n successive RR intervals;
- c) means for comparing the patient scatter plot with at least one normal distribution scatter plot of a healthy heart to check the patient scatter plot for the presence of a prescribed geometrical point structure corresponding to one a plurality of predefined states of not very likely to highly likely risk of atrial fibrillation;
- d) means for generating a state signal having one of a plurality of predetermined fixed values depending on the risk of atrial fibrillation from means c) such that the state signal has a first value if the risk of atrial fibrillation is not very likely, a second value if the risk of atrial fibrillation is between not very likely to a highly likely, and a third value if the risk of atrial fibrillation is highly likely;
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- e) a plurality of individually activatable visible display elements corresponding in number to the number of possible state signal values, each visible display element respectively being one of the possible state signal values, and means for activating the visible display element corresponding to the value of the state signal generated by means d);
- wherein the scatter plots are virtual scatter plots, and wherein the patient can independently identify the patient's health status by observing which visible display element is activated.
4 more elements
A method for detecting atrial fibrillation and alerting a patient to three degrees of risk of atrial fibrillation, comprising
- a) repetitively obtaining a plurality of groups of n successive RR intervals from a patient's heart potentials, n being a natural number greater than 1,
- b) defining a plurality of points in an n-dimensional space of numbers, each point representing one of said groups of n successive RR intervals, to form a characteristic distribution of said points, and calculating a virtual electronic plot based on said RR intervals,
- c) comparing said virtual electronic plot with at least one normal virtual scatter plot distribution derived from a healthy heart to electronically check deviation of said characteristic distribution with said normal distribution, wherein a first relative degree of deviation corresponds to a not very likely risk of atrial fibrillation, a second relative degree of deviation corresponds to a risk of atrial fibrillation between not very likely to a highly likely, and a third relative degree of deviation corresponds to a highly likely of atrial fibrillation, and
- d) generating a state signal having one of a plurality of predetermined fixed values depending on the risk of atrial fibrillation from step c) such that the state signal has a first value if the risk of atrial fibrillation is not very likely, a second value if the risk of atrial fibrillation is between not very likely to highly likely, and a third value if the risk of atrial fibrillation is highly likely, and
- e) activating one of a plurality of individually activatable visible display elements corresponding in number to the number of possible state signal values, each visible display element respectively associated with one possible state signal value, such that the visible display element corresponding to the value of the generated state signal is activated.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.