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Almeida D, Costa J, Lourenço A. ECG simulator with configurable skin-electrode impedance and artifacts emulation. Biomed Phys Eng Express 2021; 7. [PMID: 34587605 DOI: 10.1088/2057-1976/ac2b4e] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/12/2021] [Accepted: 09/29/2021] [Indexed: 11/11/2022]
Abstract
Electrocardiograms (ECG) recorded from everyday objects, such as wearables, fitness machines or smart steering wheels are becoming increasingly common. Applications are diverse and include health monitoring, athletic performance optimization, identification, authentication, and entertainment. In this study we report the design and implementation of an innovative ECG simulator, providing simulation of signal related artifacts and a dynamically adjustable skin-electrode interface model. The ECG simulator includes a unique combination of features: emulation of time dependent skin-electrode impedance, adjustable differential and common-mode interference, generation of lead-off events and analog front-end output digitalization. The skin-electrode capacitance range is 1 nF-255 nF and the resistance span is 4 kΩ-996 kΩ. System's functionality is demonstrated using a commercially available ECG front-end. The simulated SNR degradation introduced by the ECG simulator is under 0.1 dB. Results show that the skin-electrode interface can have a significant impact in the acquired waveforms. Impedance electrode imbalance, specifically of the resistive component, can generate artifacts which can be misinterpreted has arrhythmias. The proposed device can be useful for hardware and software ECG development and for training physicians and nurses to readily recognize skin-electrode impedance related artifacts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel Almeida
- ISEL-Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa, Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal.,CTS-UNINOVA, Caparica, Portugal.,FCT-UNL, Caparica, Portugal
| | - João Costa
- ISEL-Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa, Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal.,CTS-UNINOVA, Caparica, Portugal
| | - André Lourenço
- ISEL-Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa, Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal.,Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT), Lisboa, Portugal.,CardioID Technologies, Portugal
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Nguyen SC, Suba S, Hu X, Pelter MM. Double Trouble: Patients With Both True and False Arrhythmia Alarms. Crit Care Nurse 2021; 40:14-23. [PMID: 32236427 DOI: 10.4037/ccn2020363] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/01/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Patients with both true and false arrhythmia alarms pose a challenge because true alarms might be buried among a large number of false alarms, leading to missed true events. OBJECTIVE To determine (1) the frequency of patients with both true and false arrhythmia alarms; (2) patient, clinical, and electrocardiographic characteristics associated with both true and false alarms; and (3) the frequency and types of true and false arrhythmia alarms. METHODS This was a secondary analysis using data from an alarm study conducted at a tertiary academic medical center. RESULTS Of 461 intensive care unit patients, 211 (46%) had no arrhythmia alarms, 12 (3%) had only true alarms, 167 (36%) had only false alarms, and 71 (15%) had both true and false alarms. Ventricular pacemaker, altered mental status, mechanical ventilation, and cardiac intensive care unit admission were present more often in patients with both true and false alarms than among other patients (P < .001). Intensive care unit stays were longer in patients with only false alarms (mean [SD], 106 [162] hours) and those with both true and false alarms (mean [SD], 208 [333] hours) than in other patients. Accelerated ventricular rhythm was the most common alarm type (37%). CONCLUSIONS An awareness of factors associated with arrhythmia alarms might aid in developing solutions to decrease alarm fatigue. To improve detection of true alarms, further research is needed to build and test electrocardiographic algorithms that adjust for clinical and electrocardiographic characteristics associated with false alarms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stella Chiu Nguyen
- Stella Chiu Nguyen is a registered nurse in the radiology department at Stanford Healthcare, Palo Alto, California. At the time of writing this article, Ms Nguyen was a registered nurse in the emergency department and a Master's student at University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Health, San Francisco, California. Sukardi Suba is a doctoral student and an ECG monitoring predoctoral fellow in the Department of Physiological Nursing, UCSF School of Nursing. Xiao Hu is a biomedical engineer in the UCSF School of Nursing and the Institute for Computational Health Sciences, UCSF-UC Berkeley Graduate Program in Bioengineering, San Francisco. Michele M. Pelter is an assistant professor and the Director of the ECG Monitoring Research Lab, UCSF School of Nursing
| | - Sukardi Suba
- Stella Chiu Nguyen is a registered nurse in the radiology department at Stanford Healthcare, Palo Alto, California. At the time of writing this article, Ms Nguyen was a registered nurse in the emergency department and a Master's student at University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Health, San Francisco, California. Sukardi Suba is a doctoral student and an ECG monitoring predoctoral fellow in the Department of Physiological Nursing, UCSF School of Nursing. Xiao Hu is a biomedical engineer in the UCSF School of Nursing and the Institute for Computational Health Sciences, UCSF-UC Berkeley Graduate Program in Bioengineering, San Francisco. Michele M. Pelter is an assistant professor and the Director of the ECG Monitoring Research Lab, UCSF School of Nursing
| | - Xiao Hu
- Stella Chiu Nguyen is a registered nurse in the radiology department at Stanford Healthcare, Palo Alto, California. At the time of writing this article, Ms Nguyen was a registered nurse in the emergency department and a Master's student at University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Health, San Francisco, California. Sukardi Suba is a doctoral student and an ECG monitoring predoctoral fellow in the Department of Physiological Nursing, UCSF School of Nursing. Xiao Hu is a biomedical engineer in the UCSF School of Nursing and the Institute for Computational Health Sciences, UCSF-UC Berkeley Graduate Program in Bioengineering, San Francisco. Michele M. Pelter is an assistant professor and the Director of the ECG Monitoring Research Lab, UCSF School of Nursing
| | - Michele M Pelter
- Stella Chiu Nguyen is a registered nurse in the radiology department at Stanford Healthcare, Palo Alto, California. At the time of writing this article, Ms Nguyen was a registered nurse in the emergency department and a Master's student at University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Health, San Francisco, California. Sukardi Suba is a doctoral student and an ECG monitoring predoctoral fellow in the Department of Physiological Nursing, UCSF School of Nursing. Xiao Hu is a biomedical engineer in the UCSF School of Nursing and the Institute for Computational Health Sciences, UCSF-UC Berkeley Graduate Program in Bioengineering, San Francisco. Michele M. Pelter is an assistant professor and the Director of the ECG Monitoring Research Lab, UCSF School of Nursing
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Xiao R, Xu Y, Pelter MM, Fidler R, Badilini F, Mortara DW, Hu X. Monitoring significant ST changes through deep learning. J Electrocardiol 2018; 51:S78-S82. [PMID: 30082087 PMCID: PMC6261793 DOI: 10.1016/j.jelectrocard.2018.07.026] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/16/2018] [Revised: 07/19/2018] [Accepted: 07/29/2018] [Indexed: 10/28/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Ran Xiao
- Department of Physiological Nursing, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA.
| | - Yuan Xu
- Department of Physiological Nursing, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Michele M Pelter
- Department of Physiological Nursing, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Richard Fidler
- Department of Physiological Nursing, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Fabio Badilini
- Department of Physiological Nursing, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - David W Mortara
- Department of Physiological Nursing, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Xiao Hu
- Department of Physiological Nursing, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA; Department of Neurological Surgery, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA; Institute for Computational Health Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA; Core Faculty, UCB/UCSF Graduate Group in Bioengineering, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
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Electrocardiography monitor alarms: Is customization of alarms ready for prime time in an intensive care setting? Heart Lung 2018; 47:509-510. [PMID: 30077345 DOI: 10.1016/j.hrtlng.2018.07.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/22/2022]
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Tobon DP, Jayaraman S, Falk TH. Spectro-Temporal Electrocardiogram Analysis for Noise-Robust Heart Rate and Heart Rate Variability Measurement. IEEE JOURNAL OF TRANSLATIONAL ENGINEERING IN HEALTH AND MEDICINE 2017; 5:1900611. [PMID: 29255653 PMCID: PMC5731323 DOI: 10.1109/jtehm.2017.2767603] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/19/2017] [Revised: 09/27/2017] [Accepted: 10/22/2017] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
The last few years has seen a proliferation of wearable electrocardiogram (ECG) devices in the market with applications in fitness tracking, patient monitoring, athletic performance assessment, stress and fatigue detection, and biometrics, to name a few. The majority of these applications rely on the computation of the heart rate (HR) and the so-called heart rate variability (HRV) index via time-, frequency-, or non-linear-domain approaches. Wearable/portable devices, however, are highly susceptible to artifacts, particularly those resultant from movement. These artifacts can hamper HR/HRV measurement, thus pose a serious threat to cardiac monitoring applications. While current solutions rely on ECG enhancement as a pre-processing step prior to HR/HRV calculation, existing artifact removal algorithms still perform poorly under extremely noisy scenarios. To overcome this limitation, we take an alternate approach and propose the use of a spectro-temporal ECG signal representation that we show separates cardiac components from artifacts. More specifically, by quantifying the rate-of-change of ECG spectral components over time, we show that heart rate estimates can be reliably obtained even in extremely noisy signals, thus bypassing the need for ECG enhancement. With such HR measurements in hands, we then propose a new noise-robust HRV index termed MD-HRV (modulation-domain HRV) computed as the standard deviation of the obtained HR values. Experiments with synthetic ECG signals corrupted at various different signal-to-noise levels, as well as recorded noisy signals show the proposed measure outperforming several HRV benchmark parameters computed post wavelet-based enhancement. These findings suggest that the proposed HR measures and derived MD-HRV metric are well-suited for ambulant cardiac monitoring applications, particularly those involving intense movement (e.g., elite athletic training).
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Pelter MM, Xu Y, Fidler R, Xiao R, Mortara DW, Xiao H. Evaluation of ECG algorithms designed to improve detect of transient myocardial ischemia to minimize false alarms in patients with suspected acute coronary syndrome. J Electrocardiol 2017; 51:288-295. [PMID: 29129350 DOI: 10.1016/j.jelectrocard.2017.10.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/04/2017] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Patients hospitalized for suspected acute coronary syndrome (ACS) are at risk for transient myocardial ischemia. During the "rule-out" phase, continuous ECG ST-segment monitoring can identify transient myocardial ischemia, even when asymptomatic. However, current ST-segment monitoring software is vastly underutilized due to false positive alarms, with resultant alarm fatigue. Current ST algorithms may contribute to alarm fatigue because; (1) they are not designed with a delay (minutes), rather alarm to brief spikes (i.e., turning, heart rate changes), and (2) alarm to changes in a single ECG lead, rather than contiguous leads. PURPOSE This study was designed to determine sensitivity, and specificity, of ST algorithms when accounting for; ST magnitude (100μV vs 200μV), duration, and changes in contiguous ECG leads (i.e., aVL, I, - aVR, II, aVF, III; V1, V2, V3, V4, V5, V6, V6, I). METHODS This was a secondary analysis from the COMPARE Study, which assessed occurrence rates for transient myocardial ischemia in hospitalized patients with suspected ACS using 12-lead Holter. Transient myocardial ischemia was identified from Holter using >100μV ST-segment ↑ or ↓, in >1 ECG lead, >1min. Algorithms tested against Holter transient myocardial ischemia were done using the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) ECG algorithm and included: (1)100μV vs 200μV any lead during a 5-min ST average; (2)100μV vs 200μV any lead >5min, (3) 100μV vs 200μV any lead during a 5-min ST average in contiguous leads, and (4) 100μV vs 200μV>5min in contiguous leads (Table below). RESULTS In 361 patients; mean age 63+12years, 63% male, 56% prior CAD, 43 (11%) had transient myocardial ischemia. Of the 43 patients with transient myocardial ischemia, 17 (40%) had ST-segment elevation events, and 26 (60%) ST-segment depression events. A higher proportion of patients with ST segment depression has missed ischemic events. Table shows sensitivity and specificity for the four algorithms tested. CONCLUSIONS Sensitivity was highly variable, due to the ST threshold selected, with the 100μV measurement point being superior to the 200μV amplitude threshold. Of all the algorithms tested, there was moderate sensitivity and specificity (70% and 68%) using the 100μV ST-segment threshold, integrated ST-segment changes in contiguous leads during a 5-min average.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michele M Pelter
- Department of Physiological Nursing, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States.
| | - Yuan Xu
- Department of Physiological Nursing, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States
| | - Richard Fidler
- Department of Physiological Nursing, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States
| | - Ran Xiao
- Department of Physiological Nursing, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States
| | - David W Mortara
- Department of Physiological Nursing, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States
| | - Hu Xiao
- Department of Physiological Nursing, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States
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Grid mapping: a novel method of signal quality evaluation on a single lead electrocardiogram. AUSTRALASIAN PHYSICAL & ENGINEERING SCIENCES IN MEDICINE 2017; 40:895-907. [PMID: 29075993 DOI: 10.1007/s13246-017-0594-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/27/2017] [Accepted: 10/13/2017] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
Abstract
Diagnosis of long-term electrocardiogram (ECG) calls for automatic and accurate methods of ECG signal quality estimation, not only to lighten the burden of the doctors but also to avoid misdiagnoses. In this paper, a novel waveform-based method of phase-space reconstruction for signal quality estimation on a single lead ECG was proposed by projecting the amplitude of the ECG and its first order difference into grid cells. The waveform of a single lead ECG was divided into non-overlapping episodes (Ts = 10, 20, 30 s), and the number of grids in both the width and the height of each map are in the range [20, 100] (NX = NY = 20, 30, 40, … 90, 100). The blank pane ratio (BPR) and the entropy were calculated from the distribution of ECG sampling points which were projected into the grid cells. Signal Quality Indices (SQI) bSQI and eSQI were calculated according to the BPR and the entropy, respectively. The MIT-BIH Noise Stress Test Database was used to test the performance of bSQI and eSQI on ECG signal quality estimation. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) during the noisy segments of the ECG records in the database is 24, 18, 12, 6, 0 and - 6 dB, respectively. For the SQI quantitative analysis, the records were divided into three groups: good quality group (24, 18 dB), moderate group (12, 6 dB) and bad quality group (0, - 6 dB). The classification among good quality group, moderate quality group and bad quality group were made by linear support-vector machine with the combination of the BPR, the entropy, the bSQI and the eSQI. The classification accuracy was 82.4% and the Cohen's Kappa coefficient was 0.74 on a scale of NX = 40 and Ts = 20 s. In conclusion, the novel grid mapping offers an intuitive and simple approach to achieving signal quality estimation on a single lead ECG.
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Clifford GD, Silva I, Moody B, Li Q, Kella D, Chahin A, Kooistra T, Perry D, Mark RG. False alarm reduction in critical care. Physiol Meas 2016; 37:E5-E23. [PMID: 27454172 DOI: 10.1088/0967-3334/37/8/e5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 30] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022]
Abstract
High false alarm rates in the ICU decrease quality of care by slowing staff response times while increasing patient delirium through noise pollution. The 2015 PhysioNet/Computing in Cardiology Challenge provides a set of 1250 multi-parameter ICU data segments associated with critical arrhythmia alarms, and challenges the general research community to address the issue of false alarm suppression using all available signals. Each data segment was 5 minutes long (for real time analysis), ending at the time of the alarm. For retrospective analysis, we provided a further 30 seconds of data after the alarm was triggered. A total of 750 data segments were made available for training and 500 were held back for testing. Each alarm was reviewed by expert annotators, at least two of whom agreed that the alarm was either true or false. Challenge participants were invited to submit a complete, working algorithm to distinguish true from false alarms, and received a score based on their program's performance on the hidden test set. This score was based on the percentage of alarms correct, but with a penalty that weights the suppression of true alarms five times more heavily than acceptance of false alarms. We provided three example entries based on well-known, open source signal processing algorithms, to serve as a basis for comparison and as a starting point for participants to develop their own code. A total of 38 teams submitted a total of 215 entries in this year's Challenge. This editorial reviews the background issues for this challenge, the design of the challenge itself, the key achievements, and the follow-up research generated as a result of the Challenge, published in the concurrent special issue of Physiological Measurement. Additionally we make some recommendations for future changes in the field of patient monitoring as a result of the Challenge.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gari D Clifford
- Department of Biomedical Informatics, Emory University, Atlanta GA, USA. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta GA, USA
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