Algorithms development for systolic time intervals and clinical assessment of cardiac function

Discusses computer methods of automatic analysis for systolic time intervals (STI). Based on the analysis of the different characteristics of electrocardiogram (ECG), carotid pulsate wave (CPW) and phono-cardiogram (PCG), the appropriate algorithms are used for the accurate detection of the characteristic points. In particular, a slope method is applied for detecting characteristic points of ECG and CPW, and an algorithm based on wavelet transform is implemented for analysis of PCG. The parameters for clinical assessment of cardiac function based on the accurate detection of systolic time intervals are derived. The software is programmed in Visual Basic 5.0 and the authors' DLL for hardware interfacing is written in C++. The system is currently undergoing intensive clinical trials, modifications and improvement accordingly.