Patent ID: 7272432

Claim:
An exercise test device for acquiring and analyzing a multi-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) from a patient, the device comprising: input terminal for connection to a patient to acquire multi-lead ECG signals from the patient; instrumentation amplifier connected to the input terminal to filter the ECG signals and combine the signals to generate a multi-lead ECG; analysis module including a processor and software for operating the processor to detect cyclic artifact in the multi-lead ECG, wherein the cyclic artifact is detected by acquiring a trigger point in the multi-lead ECG, updating a shift register with a new trigger interval based on the trigger point, and determining whether two independent rhythms exist when a pre-determined number of trigger intervals have been recorded, and further wherein any of the leads may be selected for analysis based on a lack of cyclic artifact in that lead; and an analog-to-digital (A/D) converter connected between the instrumentation amplifier and the analysis module, wherein the multi-lead ECG generated by the instrumentation amplifier is an analog multi-lead ECG, wherein the A/D converter converts the analog multi-lead ECG to a digital mult-lead ECG and wherein the analysis module detects cyclic artifact in the digital multi-lead ECG.