An ECG (electrocardiogram) simulator is an electronic tool that plays an essential role in the testing, design, and development of ECG monitors and other ECG equipment. Principally an ECG simulator provides ECG monitors with an electrical signal that emulates the human heart's electrical signal so that the monitor can be tested for reliability and important diagnostic capabilities. However, the current portable commercially available ECG simulators are lacking in their ability to fully test ECG monitors. Specifically, the portable simulators presently on the market do not produce authentic ECG signals but rather they endeavor to create the ECG signals mathematically. They even attempt to mathematically create arrhythmias (irregular heartbeats of which there are many different types). Arrhythmia detection is an important capability for any modern ECG monitor because arrhythmias are often the critical link to the diagnosis of heart conditions or cardiovascular disease. The focus of this thesis is the design and implementation of a portable ECG simulator. The important innovation of this prototype simulator is that it will not create its ECG signals mathematically, but rather it will store ECG data files on a memory module and use this data to produce an authentic ECG signal. The data files will consist of different types of ECG signals including different types of arrhythmias. The data files are obtained via the internet and require formatting and storing onto a memory chip. These files are then processed by a digital to analog converter and output on a four lead network to produce an authentic ECG signal. The system is built around the ultra-low power Texas Instruments MSP430 microcontroller.

ECG is used clinically to detect a multitude of medical conditions, such as heart-problems like arrhythmias and heart failure, and to give a good general image of the function of the heart with a quick and harmless exam. In many clinical cases, normal ECG measurements cannot be taken, such as with fetuses where ECG signals from the mother’s own body hinder the measurement. This paper examines using machine learning algorithms to be able to simulate ECG graphs from ultrasound data alone. These algorithms are trained on ultrasound and ECG data acquired from the same patient simultaneously. The data used in the training of the algorithms is taken from samples acquired from 100 adult patients. The results found using this method to simulate an ECG indicate good possibilities for future usefulness, where machine learning to acquire simulated ECG can help facilitate clinicians in evaluating fetal heart function, as well as in other cases where ECG cannot be measured normally. / EKG används kliniskt för att upptäcka en mängd olika åkommor, så som hjärtsvikt och arytmier, men också för att ge en generell bild av hjärtfunktionen med en snabb och harmlös undersökning. I många kliniska fall kan dock inte normal EKG mätning ske, så som för foster då EKG signaler från moderns egna kropp hindrar EKG-mätningen. I detta papper undersöks användandet av maskininlärningsalgoritmer för att kunna simulera EKG grafer från enbart ultraljuds data. Dessa algoritmer är tränade på ultraljud och EKG data som simultant fåtts från samma undersökning av en patient. I detta papper har ultraljudsdatan som använts kommit från 100 mätningar från olika vuxna patienter. Resultaten funna från undersökningen av EKG simulerings metoden indikerar goda möjligheter för framtida användbarhet, då maskininlärningsalgoritmer för att simulera EKG kan underlätta när kliniker ska utvärdera hjärtfunktionen hos foster, eller i andra fall då EKG inte kan mätas normalt.

Kranskärlssjukdom (CAD) är den ledande dödsorsaken. Sjukdomen startar med plackbildning i ett eller flera kranskärl, vilket kan leda till bröstsmärta samt andra symtom. Diagnostik av CAD inkluderar undersökningarna arbetsprov (AP) och myokardscintigrafi (MPI). Båda undersökningarnas prognostiska värde påverkas dock av parametrar som elektrokardiogram (EKG), EKG-triggning, Dukes löpbands index (DTS) och Metaboliska ekvivalenter (MET). Litteraturstudiens syfte var att jämföra den prognostiska prestandan hos AP jämfört med MPI. Detta genom att studera de nämnda parametrarnas prognostiska påverkan på respektive undersökning. De använda artiklarna uppfyllde samtliga inklusionskriterier: engelska, peer-reviewed samt etiskt godkänd eller inhämtat samtycke. Databasen Pubmed, snowballsmetod samt relaterade artiklar användes vid litteraturinsamlingen. Enligt resultatet ökar ovannämnda parametrar det prognostiska värdet hos både AP och MPI. Dock visades att patienter som uppnår olika MET samt DTS-värden bättre kan riskkategoriseras med MPI. Dessutom visades MPI kunna skilja de med sämre prognos bland patienter med positiva AP-resultat, men även bland de med negativa AP-resultat. Därmed drog författarna slutsatsen att MPI har ett ökat mervärde gällande prognostik hos patienter med CAD. Fler studier som samtidigt jämför AP och MPI behövs dock för en mer fullständig slutsats. / Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the leading cause of death. This disease starts with plaque buildup in one or more coronary vessels, which can lead to chest pain among other symptoms. Diagnostics include the exercise stress test (AP) and myocardial scintigraphy (MPI). The prognostic value of both examinations depends on parameters such as electrocardiogram (ECG), ECG-gating, Duke treadmill score (DTS) and Metabolic equivalents (MET). The purpose of this study was to compare the prognostic performance of AP with MPI, by studying the prognostic effect of the mentioned parameters in each study. The used articles met all inclusion criterias: English, peer-reviewed, and ethically accepted or obtained consent. Pubmed database, snowball method and related articles were used for literature collection. According to the results, the above-mentioned parameters increase the prognostic value of AP and MPI. However, patients achieving different MET and DTS scores are better categorized with MPI. MPI was shown to differentiate those with poorer prognosis among patients with positive AP-results and those with negative AP-results. The authors concluded that MPI has an added value regarding prognosis forpatients with CAD. However, more studies comparing AP and MPI at the same time are needed to obtain a more complete conclusion.

Atrial fibrillation is the most frequent clinically significant arrhythmia. Its occurrence in adult population was previously reported to be 0.4 %, currently it is more or less 0.95 %. In industrial countries the population of patients with ischemic heart disease is increasing; with progress in therapy of such patients the number of individuals with heart disease has increased. Increasing prevalence of atrial fibrillation, which occurs frequently with such diseases, is also expected. Concurrence with atrial flutter, atrial macroreetnry arrhythmia is relatively frequent. Both arrhythmias may alternate in a patent or change from one to another. Efforts with medication therapies were not sufficiently successful in the past. New products have been sought all the time – the products which would have influence on the atrial muscle and have no influence on ventricular myocardium, have no side effects and no proarrhythmogenic potential. Simultaneously, ways of non-pharmacological treatment have been sought. The non-pharmacological methods are prevailing currently since pharmaceutical products fail and have irregular effect. The category of non-pharmacological treatment includes cardio-stimulating methods and ablation techniques. Accordingly, there were no sufficiently sophisticated methods of evaluating of arrhythmia occurrence after ablation procedures. The development of efficient detection, processing and evaluation of heart activity proceeds to long-term monitoring of heart signals using an implantable heart monitor. The latest model of implantable heart monitor has been introduced in clinical practice; it is particularly intended for diagnostics of atrial arrhythmias. The above-mentioned implant bears trade name REVEALŽ XT, produced by the MEDTRONIC Company. This thesis elaborates comprehensively the issue of implantable heart monitors of the latest generation which are specially intent on diagnostics of atrial arrhythmias. It summarizes data that was collected as a part of two world-wide multicentre studies EPECT and VISIT. In this thesis I analyze data obtained at the centre of acute cardiology hospital Na Homolce. The data population offers a comprehensive view of potentials of subcutaneous heart monitors from the pre-implanting phase to one-year follow-up of detection properties and classifications of heart arrhythmias with a strong emphasis on an analysis of atrial tachyarrhythmias. Based on thus analyzed data the following conclusion can be made: The implantable heart monitor REVEALŽ XT is suitable for clinical applications of long-term monitoring of heart rhythm both in the area of ventricular and atrial arrhythmias.

This master thesis solves the problem of estimating the quality of ECG signals. The main objective of the work is to implement a self-assessment of the quality assessment method based on the studied methods for estimating the quality of the ECG signal. The theoretical part of the thesis contains mainly the description of the electrical activity of the heart, cardiac anatomy, and physiology, electrocardiography, various types of ECG signal interference and methods describing the estimation of ECG signal quality. The practical part deals with the application of individual methods for estimating the quality of ECG signals. The SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) calculation is used to continuously estimate the quality of the ECG. Signal quality can also be judged based on statistical functions, adaptive filtering, or by analyzing independent components. The proposed method is based on the calculation of the correlation coefficient between the adaptive template and the disturbed signal. The robustness of the method was verified on artificially created ECG signals with different noise levels and then on real signals from the MIT-BIH database.

This seminar work deals with the topic of evaluating the quality of ECG signals. The introductory chapters explain the basic characteristics of ECG signals - measurement, the form of the measured signal, methods of analysis. The cardiac physiology and pathology is presented. The most common types of noise that occur in ECG signals are also mentioned. Further, the reader is acquainted with the importance of the issue of evaluating the quality of ECG signals. In the practical part of the work, two own methods for ECG quality evaluation are presented. First, a brief theoretical introduction to the techniques used in the creation of methoda is given, followed by a description of the principle of algorithms. In order to compare the functionality of the proposed methods, three more methods from other authors are presented. Their principle is briefly described. In the final chapter, all methods are subjected to functionality testing. The results are examined and all methods are compared with each other.

The topic of this master's thesis is the analysis of ECG signals using wavelet transform. In the introductory chapters there is a brief description of heart anatomy, the emergence and spread of potentials, which evocating activities of myocardium. There is an overview of techniques used for ECG signals analysis and explanation of ECG curve diagnostic importance. Work also containts an ECG signal analysis common procedure explanation and different approaches brief overview. The main part of this work is an application detecting significant intervals in the ECG signal, developed in Matlab. In several chapters the detection procedure is described in more details and gave reasons for chosen methods. In the last chapter there is a preview of several signals as a result of developed application, together with evaluation of the tests carried out at the CSE database. Detector sensitivity was quantified over 99,10%.

This thesis deals with evaluation EKG in terms of classification rhythm and analysis HRV. In theoretic part of work are described basics of heart physiology and its usual pathology, basics of electrocardiography, evaluation EKG and standard methods of HRV evaluation. In practical part are described algorithms used in created application. Mainly describes technique of rhythm evaluation, ectopic rhythms and delineation error elimination, data preparing for HRV evaluation, drift removal from DES and HRV evaluation methods. Created program was tested on CSE and MIT- BIH database records. For lack of suitable data and absence of tested data, it wasn’t possible to test all the classification rules of used algorithms. Tested part of program appears reliable and functional.

This master's thesis deals with electrocardiogram and its distortion, which causes errors, due to which a doctor can make a wrong diagnosis. In the theoretical part electrocardiogram is briefly described, further theory of wavelet transform, introduction to the signal compression and some information about ECG delineation. Methods used for the signal evaluation and therefore determination of the distortion size are described in the main theoretical part. This thesis contains known methods and also a method of own design based on the ECG delineation. Some of the described methods are checked in the practical part. These methods are tested for two different compression algorithms, which cause various distortion. In the final part distortion was tested on the influence on setting the wrong diagnosis.

The aim of this work is to study and describe the principles and method of delineation of ECG signals. Learn and describe about method of cluster analysis. In this work was created and described three different methods of delineations of ECG signals. Created algorithms were tested on complete CSE database. With cluster analysis were combine created methods. The obtained results from realized methods and combined method were compared with others known methods. At the end of this work is evaluate efficiency of detection of combined method.