DESIGN, IMPLEMENTATION AND EVALUATION OF A MICROCOMPUTER-BASED PORTABLE ARRHYTHMIA MONITOR

Designed for real-time cardiac arrhythmia analysis, it is suitable for use on ambulatory patients for several weeks, and is about the size and weight of a Holter recorder. The device differs from a Holter recorder in that it does not store normal complexes but recognizes and alarms on significant arrhythmias. It stores 16 sec of the arrhythmic event, which it can transmit by telephone to a central receiving station for immediate appraisal by a cardiologist. The monitor uses a CMOS microcomputer and has 2 kbytes of program memory and 2 kbytes of data memory. The arrhythmia monitor program recognizes tachycardia, bradycardia, asystole, dropped beats, and PVCs (Premature Ventricular Contractions). The alarm limits are physician programmable. The performance of the monitor was evaluated with standard annotated ECG tapes provided by MIT/BIH. This device should be useful for applications such as antiarrhythmic drug studies, for pacemaker and postsurgery evaluations, and for detecting premonitory as well as life-threatening arrhythmias.