Patent ID: 8504143

Claim:
A method for analyzing an ECG signal to diagnose a heart condition of an individual, comprising: (a) generating a sequence HB i of consecutive heart beat durations in the ECG signal, where HB i is the duration of the ith heart beat in the sequence; (b) for a plurality of integers i: (i) calculating one or more first parameters in a calculation involving HB i and HB i-m , where m is a first predetermined integer and HB i-m is the duration of the heart beat that occurred m heart beats before the ith heart beat, wherein the first parameter is one or both of x mi = 2 2 ⁢ HB i + 2 2 ⁢ HB i - m and y mi = - 2 2 ⁢ HB i + 2 2 ⁢ HB i - m . and (ii) calculating one or more second parameters in a calculation involving HB i and HB i-n , where n is second predetermined integer different from m; (c) calculating a diagnostic parameter in a calculation involving the first parameters and the second parameters calculated in step (b), and (d) comparing the diagnostic parameter to a predetermined threshold, and making a diagnosis based on the comparison.