Sequential analysis for automatic detection of atrial fibrillation and flutter

A method for automatic detection of atrial flutter and fibrillation by sequential analysis of the atrial activity in a single ECG lead is developed. A previous method for automatic detection of atrial flutter/fibrillation was based on the assessment of atrial activity in TP segments. This approach is used in the present work, connected with ´P wave absence´ and ´ventricular arrhythmia detection, forming a combined algorithm with three consecutive logic steps. The proposed method has been applied on 329 records from a diagnosed atrial flutter-fibrillation database. An improvement of the total accuracy=98.8% and Sensitivity=95.7% was achieved mostly due to the reduction of false negative errors. The sequential analysis correctly detects ´fine´ fibrillation where atrial activity is barely visible, and the effect of electromyogram noise was reduced