Patent ID: 8315694

Claim:
A heart monitor for detecting ectopic beats in an electrocardiogram signal comprising: an implantable device configured to monitor an electrocardiogram signal subcutaneously; an electrocardiogram signal input coupled with said implantable device and configured to obtain said electrocardiogram signal; a first signal analyzer connected to said electrocardiogram signal input, said first signal analyzer configured to generate a first time series of values that represent each duration of a respective measured RR interval derived from said electrocardiogram signal; a second signal analyzer configured to generate a modified time series of values that represent a trend of values of said first time series through application of one or more morphological operators comprising an erosion operator or a dilation operator or any combination thereof and to remove abnormal RR intervals from said first time series of values that represent each duration of the respective measured RR-interval, to thus derive the modified time series of RR-intervals that represent a trend of RR intervals; and, a comparison stage configured to compare said first time series with said modified time series and thus detect ectopic beats from said modified time series generated with a first discrete kernel function of a first length or detect non-sustained ventricular tachycardia from said modified time series generated with a second discrete kernel function of a second length wherein said second length is greater than said first length or detect both ectopic beats from said modified time series generated with said first discrete kernel function of said first length and non-sustained ventricular tachycardia from said modified time series generated with said second discrete kernel function of said second length wherein said second length is greater than said first length.