Patent ID: 8180442

Claim:
A method of presenting physical activity information for an individual by detecting non-cardiac muscle noise in electrocardiogram (ECG) waveform information collected by an implanted medical device, the method comprising the steps of: a) implanting a medical device within a patient, the medical device comprising at least a first subcutaneous electrode implanted in or adjacent to the patient's heart and a second subcutaneous electrode implanted in or adjacent to non-cardiac muscle or fascia tissue of the chest, abdomen, back or neck regions of the patient; b) acquiring a composite electrical waveform from the first and second subcutaneous electrodes, the composite electrical waveform comprising cardiac derived electrical signals generated by cardiac activity of the heart and non-cardiac derived electrical signals including both psychological and physiological data generated by non-cardiac muscle or fascia tissue of the patient during each of a plurality of non-overlapping time periods; c) post-processing at least two of the acquired composite electrical waveforms by performing the following operations: i) selecting one of the plurality of non-overlapping time periods; ii) identifying non-cardiac muscle activity events in the acquired composite electrical waveform that occurred during the selected time period; iii) aggregating the non-cardiac muscle activity events identified in operation ii) to determine a period activity value that represents a level of electrical activity of the patient during the selected time period; and iv) repeating operations i)-iii) for a second one of the time periods in the plurality of time periods; and d) displaying to a user a representation of the period activity value for the at least two time periods.