Low complexity methods for intracardiac atrial electrogram compression

This paper studies methods for intracardiac atrial electrograms compression suitable with implementation on implantable devices. Algorithms are based an piecewise linear approximation, beat detection, and their combination. Bipolar intracardiac electrograms were obtained during electrophysiological studies and divided into 3 rhythm groups. The authors analyzed 2196 seconds of sinus rhythm (SR), 786 sec. of atrial fibrillation (AF) and 1793 sec. of atrial flutter (AFL). Performance over the whole data base reach average compressed data rate (CDR) ranging between 500 and 850 (bits/second), and the percent of root mean square difference (PRD) varies from 2 to 12% depending on the choice of methods and accepted errors. Preliminary results show that time consumption can be reduced to enable real time compression with implanted devices.