Patent ID: 8424524

Claim:
A method for providing an average signal characteristic profile relating first and second physiological properties, the average signal characteristic profile being derived from signals obtained from different cycles of a cyclically recurring physiological phenomenon, said method comprising the steps of: (a) sampling the signal produced from a first cycle of the physiological phenomenon at a series of data points of a first physiological property to obtain second physiological property values of the first cycle signal at the data points; (b) sampling the signal produced from a second cycle of the physiological phenomenon at a series of data points corresponding to those of the first series of data points to obtain second physiological property values of the second cycle signal at the data points; (c) determining the change in the second physiological property values for the first cycle signal between a pair of successive data points including a first data point and a second data point; (d) determining the change in the second physiological property values for the second cycle signal between the same pair of successive first and second data points; (e) averaging the determined amount of change of only the cycle signals having second physiological property values at both of the pair of successive first and second data points to produce an average change amount between the successive first and second data points; (f) utilizing only the change in the second physiological property of the first or second cycle signals having the second physiological property value at both of the pair of successive data points as the average change amount when the other of the first and second cycle signals does not have the second physiological property value at both of the pair of successive data points; and (g) adding the average change amount to a value of the average signal characteristic profile at the first of the pair of successive data points to produce a new second physiological property value for the average signal characteristic profile at the second of the data points of the pair of successive data points.