Patent ID: 8641632

Claim:
A method for predicting abnormal medical events, assisting in diagnosis, or monitoring a patient, comprising detecting and simultaneously distinguishing between, continuously and in real time, a concomitant occurrence of a temporary inefficiency of the cardiac baro-reflex and an activation of the non-baro-reflex cardiovascular regulation, wherein the detecting and simultaneously distinguishing is carried out using a device comprising a computing unit; and wherein the detecting and simultaneous distinguishing comprises: a) continuously measuring (beat-by-beat) time intervals determined from an ECG between two consecutive cardiac cycles (IT) and arterial pressure (AP); and b) filtering by means of a low-pass filter the beat-by-beat series of the time intervals IT and the series of AP calculated at step a), the filtering giving rise to filtered series IT f and AP f of IT and of AP respectively; and c) monitoring for the occurrence of one or more of the following sequences: (i) increase in AP f /time period/reduced increase in IT f ; (ii) increase in AP f /time period/delayed increase in IT f ; and (iii) increase in AP f /time period/decrease in IT f ; wherein the occurrence of any one of (i)-(iii) is a predictive index that indicates (a) the concomitant occurrence of a temporary inefficiency of the cardiac baro-reflex and an activation of the non-baro-reflex cardiovascular regulation and (b) the cardiovascular depth of anesthesia.