Patent ID: 8315698

Claim:
A method for automatic analysis of T-wave alternans (TWA) comprising the following method steps: (a) collecting and storing an electrocardiogram (ECG) signal; (b) detecting each heartbeat T-wave in the ECG signal using an automatic detection and segmentation algorithm; (c) classifying said heartbeat T-wave as an even or odd heartbeat T-wave; (d) initializing said method by taking the first even and the first odd heartbeat T-wave as their respective initial average; (e) processing all the heartbeat T-waves in the ECG signal to generate an even heartbeat T-wave weighted average and odd heartbeat T-wave weighted average; and (f) calculating TWA using a distance metric requiring alignment between the even heartbeat weighted average and the odd heartbeat weighted average, said distance metric includes a curve matching algorithm employing Continuous Dynamic Time Warping (CDTW) in order to optimally align said even heartbeat weighted average and the odd heartbeat weighted average.