Representative Electrogram Morphology Analysis for Cardiac Monitoring
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current implantable cardiac devices face challenges in effectively monitoring and displaying the electrical activity of the heart over time, particularly in distinguishing between natural variability and actual changes in a patient's health status, which affects the detection of progressive or abrupt changes in heart function.
Innovation Solution
An implantable cardiac device generates representative electrograms that can be transmitted to an external programmer for display, averaging electrograms over specified time intervals or heart rate ranges to reduce variability and provide graphical representations of cardiac activity, allowing clinicians to monitor changes in morphology and patient status.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If electrograms are recorded continuously to monitor heart function, then the quantity of data increases, but the difficulty of detecting and measuring actual changes versus natural variability increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the continuous electrogram data into discrete beats and further into morphological components. By dividing the data into individual beats and then analyzing morphological features separately, the system makes it easier to detect actual changes versus natural variability. This segmentation allows for systematic comparison of morphological features across multiple beats.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates representative copies of electrogram beats by averaging morphological features across multiple recorded beats. These representative electrograms serve as reference copies that capture the typical morphology, allowing clinicians to compare individual beats against the representative pattern to detect significant deviations indicating actual changes in heart function.
2Measurement precision
If representative electrograms are generated by averaging multiple electrograms, then the precision of morphology measurement improves, but the complexity of the device increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the essential morphological features from the complete electrogram signals for averaging and comparison. By taking out and analyzing only the relevant morphological characteristics rather than processing entire waveforms, the system achieves improved measurement precision while minimizing the computational complexity and memory requirements of the implantable device.
3Loss of information
If electrograms are displayed in detailed waveform form, then the information content increases, but the ease of operation for visual inspection decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by highlighting specific morphological features and regions of interest in the electrogram displays rather than presenting uniform detailed waveforms. By emphasizing local characteristics such as specific waveform segments or morphological deviations, the system maintains essential information while improving visual accessibility and ease of clinical interpretation.
Data Source
AI summary
A system and method is presented in which an implantable cardiac device is configured to generate representative electrograms which can be transmitted to an external programmer for display. A representative electrogram represents a patient's typical electrogram during a defined time period or when a particular condition exists. Such representative electrograms may be averages or other statistical measures of electrograms recorded continuously or periodically during the defined time period or during the time when the particular condition exists.