Patent ID: 8543194

Claim:
A method of detecting abnormality in a predetermined portion of an electrocardiography (ECG) signal corresponding to a predetermined time period, the method comprising: segmenting the predetermined duration of ECG signal into a plurality of ECG segments, each ECG segment including a nominal ECG pattern, and the plurality of ECG segments including one or more pairs of adjacent ECG segments; for each pair of the one or more pairs of adjacent ECG segments: re-sampling at least one of the adjacent ECG segments to derive two ECG arrays having the same number of data points representative of magnitude of waveforms of the adjacent ECG segments; and calculating a joint probability and a marginal probability of the two ECG arrays of the adjacent ECG segments; generating a mutual information array based on the calculated joint probability and the calculated marginal probability of the one or more pairs of adjacent ECG segments; and determining a likelihood of a predetermined type of illness by comparing the mutual information array or a set of indexes derived from the mutual information array with a predetermined benchmark pattern corresponding to the predetermined type of illness.