Method and apparatus for determining information indicative of cardiac malfunctions and abnormalities

1. An apparatus, comprising:

a signal interface, that receives a signal indicative of cardiovascular motion, and that receives information indicative of a frequency of a respiratory rhythm; and

a processing device coupled to the signal interface,

wherein the processing device is configured to:

detect peak-to-peak amplitude variation from the signal, the peak-to-peak amplitude variation being a variation of peak-to-peak amplitude of a wave pattern repeating on a heart-beat rate on the signal so that the peak-to-peak amplitude variation includes a plurality of increases of the peak-to-peak amplitude and a plurality of decreases of the peak-to-peak amplitude,

compute a signal component of the peak-to-peak amplitude variation having the frequency of the respiratory rhythm, and

produce a signal expressing atrial fibrillation in response to a situation in which the signal component of the peak-to-peak amplitude variation having the frequency of the respiratory rhythm is less than a threshold, and

wherein, in detecting the peak-to-peak amplitude variations from the signal, the processing device operates to filter the signal, and the peak-to-peak amplitude variation is determined from peaks detected from the filtered signal.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the apparatus further comprises:

a sensor element that measures said signal, the sensor element being connectable to the signal interface.

3. The apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein the sensor element provides to the signal interface the information indicative of the frequency of the respiratory rhythm.

4. The apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein the sensor element comprises one selected from the group consisting of: an accelerometer, a piezo-electronic sensor, an inclinometer, and a pressure sensor.

5. The apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the processing device is configured to detect from the signal peak-to-peak values related to wave complexes, each of which being constituted by the AO-peak caused by opening of the aortic valve and the downward wave following the AO-peak, the wave pattern repeating on the heart-beat rate being constituted by the AO-peak and the downward wave following the AO-peak.

6. The apparatus according to claim 5 , wherein the processing device is configured to low-pass filter the signal indicative of the cardiovascular motion and to detect the AO-peaks from the low-pass filtered signal.

7. The apparatus according to claim 6 , wherein an upper limit frequency of the low-pass filtering is 30 Hz.

8. The apparatus according to claim 5 , wherein the processing device is configured to band-pass filter the signal indicative of the cardiovascular motion and to detect AC-peaks from the band-pass filtered signal, the AC-peaks being caused by closures of the aortic valve.

9. The apparatus according to claim 8 , wherein a pass-band of the band-pass filtering is from 40 Hz to 100 Hz.

10. A method, comprising:

receiving a signal indicative of cardiovascular motion;

applying a filter to said signal so as to generate a filtered signal indicative of said cardiovascular motion;

detecting peak-to-peak amplitude variation from the filtered signal indicative of cardiovascular motion, the peak-to-peak amplitude variation being a variation of peak-to-peak amplitude of a wave pattern repeating on a heart-beat rate on the filtered signal, such that the peak-to-peak amplitude variation includes a plurality of increases of the peak-to-peak amplitude and a plurality of decreases of the peak-to-peak amplitude;

computing a signal component of the peak-to-peak amplitude variation having a frequency of a respiratory rhythm; and

producing a signal expressing atrial fibrillation in response to a situation in which the signal component of the peak-to-peak amplitude variation having the frequency of the respiratory rhythm is determined to be lower than a threshold.

11. The method according to claim 10 , wherein the detecting of the peak-to-peak amplitude variation comprises detecting peak-to-peak values related to wave complexes, each of which being constituted by the AO-peak caused by opening of the aortic valve and the downward wave following the AO-peak.

12. The method according to claim 11 , wherein the filter applies low-pass filtering to the signal indicative of the cardiovascular motion, and the detecting step detects the AO-peaks from the low-pass filtered signal.

13. The method according to claim 12 , wherein an upper limit frequency of the low-pass filtering is 30 Hz.

14. The method according to claim 11 , wherein the filter applies band-pass filtering to the signal indicative of the cardiovascular motion, and the detecting step detects AC-peaks from the band-pass filtered signal, the AC-peaks being caused by closures of the aortic valve.

15. The method according to claim 14 , wherein a pass-band of the band-pass filtering is from 40 Hz to 100 Hz.

16. A non-transitory computer readable medium encoded with a computer program comprising computer executable instructions for controlling a programmable processor, the computer executable instructions configured such to, upon execution by the programmable processor, cause the programmable processor to:

receive a signal indicative of cardiovascular motion;

apply a filter to said signal so as to generate a filtered signal indicative of said cardiovascular motion;

detect peak-to-peak amplitude variation from the filtered signal indicative of cardiovascular motion, the peak-to-peak amplitude variation being variation of peak-to-peak amplitude of a wave pattern repeating on a heart-beat rate on the filtered signal, such that the peak-to-peak amplitude variation includes a plurality of increases of the peak-to-peak amplitude and a plurality of decreases of the peak-to-peak amplitude;

compute a signal component of the amplitude variation having a frequency of a respiratory rhythm;

determine whether the signal component of the peak-to-peak amplitude variation having the frequency of the respiratory rhythm is lower than a threshold; and

in the event the signal component of the peak-to-peak amplitude variation having the frequency of the respiratory rhythm is determined to be lower than the threshold, produce a signal expressing atrial fibrillation.