Patent ID: 7734335

Claim:
A method of detecting a cardiac atrial fibrillation event in a non-continuous electrocardiogram (EKG) signal, the method comprising: a) detecting a portion of the EKG signal comprising cardiac beats, wherein the portion includes at least one gap; b) measuring a duration of the gap in the detected portion of the EKG signal; c) computing a plurality of inter-beat intervals using the cardiac beats, wherein a computed inter-beat interval of the plurality is selected if the measured gap duration in the detected portion of the EKG signal is not more than a fraction alpha of the computed inter-beat interval; d) computing a variance of the selected inter-beat intervals; e) classifying the portion of the EKG signal as indicative of an atrial fibrillation event if the computed variance of the classified portion of the EKG signal exceeds a pre-determined value V; f) discarding the portion of the EKG signal classified as indicative of atrial fibrillation if the classified portion has a duration less than a pre-determined threshold S; and g) annotating the EKG signal, a non-discarded portion of the EKG signal having the computed variance that exceeds the pre-determined value V being annotated as an atrial fibrillation event.