Short-term Heart Rate Variability using wrist-worn pulse wave monitor compared to a Holter ECG

The physiological variation of heart rate, controlled by autonomic nervous system, is called Heart Rate Variability (HRV). Measuring HRV reveals a wide range of useful information about humans' body and health status, including prognostic issues. Our study refers to the use of a wrist-worn photoplethysmography (PPG) device simultaneously with an ECG Holter to test the agreement between statistics of pulse wave and ECG time series, i.e. to see if the PPG device may be used instead of the Holter ECG to properly asses the heart activity. Preliminary experiments performed on 9 young and healthy subjects revealed a good agreement between statistic parameters of short-term temporal series obtained from electrocardiogram (ECG) and pulse wave (PW). In this way and in certain conditions it is allowed to replace the HRV analysis obtained by means of electrocardiograph or Holter devices with that performed by a PPG device, that is more suitable and easy-to-use monitor of heart health status.