Patent ID: 6312382
Filing Date: 2001-11-06
Classification: A61B,G01S

Abstract:
An apparatus for extracting a patient's cardiac rate from acoustic information acquired with an ultrasound device, the ultrasound device comprising data acquisition circuitry, the apparatus comprising:a probe of the ultrasound device coupled to the data acquisition circuitry, the probe and data acquisition circuitry cooperating to acquire acoustic ultrasound information, the data acquisition circuitry acquiring the acquired acoustic ultrasound information at a particular frame rate, the data acquisition circuitry converting the acoustic ultrasound information into electrical envelope signals; andprocessing logic in communication with the data acquisition circuitry, the processing logic receiving the electrical envelope signals from the data acquisition circuitry, the processing logic being configured to generate a time-series representation from the electrical envelope signals, the processing logic being configured to perform a spectral analysis on the time-series representation, the processing logic being configured to analyze results of the spectral analysis to extract the patient's cardiac rate from the results of the spectral analysis.