Internet-based, GPRS, long-term ECG monitoring and non-linear heart-rate analysis for cardiovascular telemedicine management

A portable GSM ECG with GPRS communication was developed with an Internet database for the on/off-line analysis of large amount of ambulatory ECG (www.bion.hu). 3 studies were performed determining the role of nonlinear heart rate dynamically in the separation of various disease groups (sudden cardiac death in CHF and in post-infarction (post-MI) patients, malignant ventricular rhythm disturbances in post-MI groups). The Haar wavelet analysis (wavelet SD by scale parameters) showed a good separation in the 3-5 scale range. The multivariate discriminant models with input values of α₁, α₂, β and the approximate entropy showed a good separation (Wilks´ statistics: p < 0.001) of the patients´ groups. The frequent, Internet based ECG monitoring would be help in the individual cardiovascular risk management.