Patent ID: 8790259

Claim:
An apparatus to monitor a patient, the apparatus comprising, a processor system comprising at least one processor having a tangible medium with instructions of a computer program embodied thereon, the processor system configured to receive heart rate data of the patient, the heart rate data comprising a plurality of measurements of the patient's heart rate taken over a period of time under a variety of conditions of daily living on the part of the patient, wherein the period of time encompasses a variety of activity levels on the part of the patient, and the heart rate data includes heart rates measured while the patient is at rest and heart rates measured while the patient is active; construct a histogram of the measurements of the patient's heart rate; and identify chronotropic incompetence of the patient based on the shape of the histogram; wherein the computer program comprises instructions to determine a peak of the histogram and a first portion of the histogram and a second portion of the histogram, the first portion corresponding to a first amount of occurrences of first heart rates lower than the heart rate corresponding to the peak and the second portion corresponding to a second amount of occurrences of second heart rates greater than the heart rate corresponding to the peak and wherein the chronotropic incompetence is identified based on the second amount smaller than the first amount.