Bayesian discriminator for rapidly detecting arrhythmias

Abstract

A method for accurate and rapid automated detection of atrial fibrillation (AF), sinus rhythm (SF), and atrial flutter (AFL) is disclosed, which allows distinguishing of these cardiac signals with lowered risk of errors by implanted pacemakers and like devices. The method includes training episodes of intra-cardiac signals (called the closed data set CDS) to evaluate five feature parameters with a discriminator classifying the signal into AF, AFL or sinus rhythm (SR). Comparison with the independent decisions of experienced physicians for each episode reveals specificity, accuracy and sensitivity of greater than 97%. Each episode is a window of intracardiac signal of interval 1-2 seconds with the discriminator providing results in less than 0.25 s. In another aspect, the method is resistant to the presence of noise in the data. In yet another aspect, more feature parameters may be used in alternative implementations including for detecting signals other than AF, AFL & SR.