Patent ID: 7715909

Claim:
A device for monitoring and displaying cardiac function of a patient's heart said heart exhibiting a mitral valve closure MC event, a mitral valve opening MO event, an aortic valve closure AC event and an aortic valve opening AO event comprising: a) at least two accelerometer sensors placed on the patients body at two locations selected from the set of on the ribcage at the intercostal space over the apex of the heart establishing an apex channel, on the sternum of the patient establishing a xyphoid channel, on the neck over the location of the carotid artery establishing a carotid channel; said sensors generating signals in response to compression waves originating the heart; b) signal processing system coupled to said sensors for generating an seismocardiographic (SCG) waveform from each of said sensors, and for recording and storing a segment of said SCG waveform for analysis; c) a module for a stepwise process for extracting the time of mechanical events is selected from the group comprising MC, MO, AC, AO, in the heart from said SCG waveform segment and for presenting the time of each such events to a system user on a display; and d) a set of ECG electrodes placed on said patient's body for generating signals in response to electrical depolarization of originating the heart; e) signal processing system coupled to said ECG electrodes for generating an ECG waveform, and for recording and storing a segment of said ECG waveform for analysis; f) a module for an AO selection process in one SCG channel from one of said sensors, wherein the process includes: forming an average carotid acceleration wavelet from said carotid SCG channel waveform; identify the R wave peak in the ECG channel; identify the largest positive peak in said SCG channel waveform within 220 msec of the R peak and mark this point as AO carotid, if no positive peak is found, start search again at R wave peak and search ahead for the largest negative peak, when found, search back for the first negative knee (concave down), and mark this point as AO carotid.