Patent ID: 8442624

Claim:
A system for heart performance characterization and abnormality detection, comprising: an interface for receiving sampled data representing an electrical signal indicating electrical activity of a patient heart over a plurality of heart beat cycles; a signal processor including a peak detector and time detector for identifying peaks and detecting a time difference between the identified peaks of the received sampled data, said signal processor being configured to process the received sampled data in determining, a plurality of first signal characteristic values over a plurality of heart cycles including, a first signal characteristic value comprising a time interval between a peak of a P wave to a peak of a succeeding R wave representing a repolarization time interval in an individual heart cycle and a plurality of second signal characteristic values over a plurality of heart cycles, a second signal characteristic value comprising a time interval between the start of a P wave to a peak of the P wave representing a depolarization time interval in an individual heart cycle; a comparator for comparing at least one of the plurality of first and second signal characteristic values or a value determined by said signal processor from both the first and the second signal characteristic value, with a threshold value to provide a comparison indicator; and a patient monitor for generating an alert message associated with the threshold in response to said comparison indicator.