MULTIRESOLUTION WAVELET ANALYSIS OF HEARTBEAT INTERVALS DISCRIMINATESHEALTHY PATIENTS FROM THOSE WITH CARDIAC PATHOLOGY

We applied multiresolution wavelet analysis to the sequence of times b etween human heartbeats (R-R intervals) and have found a scale window, between 16 and 32 heartbeat intervals, over which the widths of the R -R wavelet coefficients fall into disjoint sets for normal and heart-f ailure patients. This has enabled us to correctly classify every patie nt in a standard data set as belonging either to the heart-failure or normal group with 100% accuracy, thereby providing a clinically signif icant measure of the presence of heart failure from the R-R intervals alone. Comparison is made with previous approaches, which have provide d only statistically significant measures.