DEVICE FOR DETERMINING A PHYSIOLOGICAL CONDITION OF A PERSON

Abstract

A device for determining the physiological condition of a person in a simple manner, which device measures the pulse rate and based on that additionally determines the heart rate variability. In addition, at least one parameter should be used for the history of one of the two above-mentioned values. The deviation of the pulse rate and the heart rate variability from a normal variable is preferably integrated and used as an additional indicator. The device preferably includes a wearable electrocardiography device.

Claims

1. A processing device for determining a physiological condition of a person, the processing device being configured: to receive data of a pulse frequency and of a heart rate variability of the person acquired by a wearable acquisition device; to process the data of the pulse frequency and of the heart rate variability in a plurality of processing windows, comprising: normalizing the pulse frequency using values of the pulse frequency in any processing window; determining a first partial index value SIP based on the normalized pulse frequency; normalizing the heart rate variability using values of the heart rate variability in any processing window; determining a second partial index value SIHRV based on the normalized heart rate variability; and determining an index indicative of the physiological condition of the person as a weighted function of the first partial index value SIP and the second partial index value SIHRV.

2. The processing device according to claim 1, wherein the processing device is further configured for controlling a display device for generating a visual representation of at least part of the indexes determined in the plurality of processing windows.

3. The processing device according to claim 1, wherein the indexes indicative of the physiological condition of the person are stress indexes between a high stress condition and a relaxed stress condition relative to the person's stress condition in any processing window and wherein a stress condition is detected and reported as the physiological condition.

4. The processing device according to claim 1, wherein the processing device is further configured to compare the indexes indicative of the physiological condition of the person with an alarm value indicative of an occurrence a physiological condition.

5. The processing device according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of processing windows are defined as a predetermined time interval and/or a predetermined number of heart beats.

6. The processing device according to claim 1, wherein: the values of pulse frequency used for normalizing the pulse frequency comprise minimum and/or maximum values of the pulse frequency in any processing window, and/or the values of heart rate variability used for normalizing the heart rate variability comprise minimum and/or maximum values of the heart rate variability in any processing window.

7. A system for determining a physiological condition of a person comprising: a wearable acquisition device, such as a wearable electrocardiography device, for acquiring data of a pulse frequency and of a heart rate variability of the person; a processing device according to claim 1, communicatively connected to the wearable acquisition device.

8. The system according to claim 7, further comprising a comparator device configured to compare the indexes indicative of the physiological condition of the person with an alarm value indicative of an occurrence a physiological condition.

9. The system according to claim 7, further comprising a display device for displaying a visual representation of at least part of the indexes determined in the plurality of processing windows.

10. A computer implemented method for determining a physiological condition of a person, the method comprising: receiving data of a pulse frequency and of a heart rate variability of the person; processing the data of the pulse frequency and of the heart rate variability in a plurality of processing windows, comprising: normalizing the pulse frequency using values of the pulse frequency in any processing window; determining a first partial index value SIP based on the normalized pulse frequency; normalizing the heart rate variability using values of the heart rate variability in any processing window; determining a second partial index value SIHRV based on the normalized heart rate variability; and determining an index indicative of the physiological condition of the person as a weighted function of the first partial index value SIP and of the second partial index value SIHRV.

11. The method according to claim 10, wherein further comprising controlling a display device for generating a visual representation of at least part of the indexes determined in the plurality of processing windows.

12. The method according to claim 10, wherein the indexes indicative of the physiological condition of the person are stress indexes between a high stress condition and a relaxed stress condition relative to the person's stress condition in any processing window and wherein a stress condition is detected and reported as the physiological condition.

13. The method device according to claim 10, wherein further comprising comparing the indexes indicative of the physiological condition of the person with an alarm value indicative of an occurrence a physiological condition.

14. The method according to claim 10, wherein the plurality of processing windows are defined as a predetermined time interval and/or a predetermined number of heart beats.

15. The method according to claim 10, comprising: using minimum and/or maximum values of the pulse frequency in any processing window for normalizing the pulse frequency comprise, and/or using minimum and/or maximum values of the heart rate variability in any processing window for normalizing the heart rate variability.

16. Computer program product comprising instructions, which, when executed by a processing device, cause the processing device to carry out the method according to claim 10.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

[0042] The above mentioned and other features and objects of this invention and the manner of achieving them will become more apparent and this invention will be better understood by reference to the following description of various embodiments of the invention taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings,

[0043] FIG. 1 shows a block diagram representation of a device for detecting and reporting of a physiological condition of a person; and

[0044] FIG. 2 shows a block diagram representation including a representation of the steps for determining a physiological condition.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0045] The device of the present invention comprises, according to a preferred exemplary embodiment of the invention, a measuring device for detecting the pulse rate and the values that are necessary for calculating heart rate variability. In the present case this is a pulse measuring sensor, but alternatively it can also be an electrical sensor for measuring electrical cardio graphic measurement values, as well as a display device. Moreover, the device comprises an interface for the input of person-related parameters, which are particularly needed for determining the history to be used according to the invention. A key component of the device is a computing device that controls the necessary acquisition of the measurement data, processes the measurement data in the digital form needed, executes the data processing and controls the display.

[0046] In the present exemplary embodiment the heart rate variability HRV is determined by means of the RMSSD method (“Root mean square of successive differences”), but also by other methods, such as e.g. the method “SIR” based on standard deviations, the method pRR50, in which the number of consecutive RR intervals that are larger than 50 ms is determined and the value thus obtained is divided by the total number of consecutive RR intervals, or frequency-oriented methods such as, for example, the calculation via the quotient LFtot/HFtot of the low-frequency frequency components divided by the higher-frequency frequency components. The HRV value obtained by means of RMSSD is calculated as the square root of the sum of the squared differences between neighboring RR intervals. In this context it should be noted that for the selection of the calculation method one may use, on the one hand, pertinent recent findings of the respective technical field and of the respective application range of the method according to the present invention or of the device according to the present invention, but on the other hand it is conceivable to simply take into account practical aspects of the respective selection. In the case where the HRV values are determined by means of the RMSSD method, in the present exemplary embodiment 0 is used as tabulated value for HRV.sub.min for all ages. The other minimum values used in the exemplary embodiment shown here, which refer to the pulse and to the HRV, are selected according to the following table:

[0047] Age dependent resting heart rate values

TABLE-US-00001 Youths: 14 . . . 18 Resting heart rate: 85 beats/minute Adults: 19 . . . 65 Resting heart rate: 70 beats/minute Seniors: 65+ Resting heart rate: 90 beats/minute

[0048] Age dependent HRV.sub.max values (RMSSD)

TABLE-US-00002 15 . . . 20 47 ms 21 . . . 30 46 ms 31 . . . 40 40 ms 41 . . . 50 35 ms 51 . . . 60 30 ms 61 . . . 70 24 ms

[0049] according to Angelink et al: Innovationstagung FH Rapperswil 4.5.2011

[0050] In this context it should be noted that, without departing from the sense of the method of the present invention, rather different parameters of the subjects such as e.g., the gender etc. can be incorporated into the table.

[0051] According to the exemplary embodiment the normalizations are each carried out by means of a normalization value

P.sub.z−P.sub.min+a*(Pmax−P.sub.min)

HRV.sub.z=HRV.sub.min+b*(HRV.sub.max−HRV.sub.min)

and the calculation of the summands of the stress value SI is each carried out according to

SI.sub.P−(P.sub.d1−P.sub.z)/(P.sub.max−P.sub.z) if P.sub.d1>P.sub.z

SI.sub.P=(P.sub.d1−P.sub.z)/(P.sub.z−P.sub.min) if P.sub.d1<P.sub.z

SI.sub.HRV=−(HRV.sub.d1−HRV.sub.z)/(HRV.sub.max−HRV.sub.z) if HRV.sub.d1>HRV.sub.z

SI.sub.HRV=−(HRV.sub.d1−HRV.sub.z)/(HRV.sub.z−HRV.sub.min) if HRV.sub.d1<HRV.sub.z

and

SI.sub.P=(P.sub.dx−P.sub.z)/(P.sub.max−P.sub.z) if P.sub.dx>P.sub.z

SI.sub.P=(P.sub.dx−P.sub.z)/(P.sub.z−P.sub.min) if P.sub.dx<P.sub.z

SI.sub.HRV=−(HRV.sub.dx−HRV.sub.z)/(HRV.sub.max−HRV.sub.z) if HRV.sub.dx>HRV.sub.z

SI.sub.HRV=−(HRV.sub.dx−HRV.sub.z)/(HRV.sub.z−HRV.sub.min) if HRV.sub.dx<HRV.sub.z,

[0052] wherein a was selected as 0.25 and b as 0.5 and c and d were selected as 1. In the exemplary embodiment the current values of the stress index SI are selected after the predetermined number of pulse beats by means of a digital low-pass filter SI=f*SI.sub.x+(1−f)*SI.sub.x-1 calculated with f of 0.1. The device has been set up accordingly.

[0053] It should be still noted that the individual windows in which the stress index values are determined advantageously include various states of the subjects, such as e.g., lying, standing, moving, in the sense of the Conconi test, etc.

[0054] Moreover, it should be noted that even if test intervals are very widely separated in time, the adoption of the last test interval leads to a better result or more quickly to a good result than starting out with tabulated values. On the other hand, it may of course be appropriate to revert using tabulated values if the status of the subject has significantly changed in a fundamental manner.