TY  - JOUR
A1  - Wessel, Niels
A1  - Ziehmann, Christine
A1  - Kurths, Jürgen
A1  - Meyerfeldt, Udo
A1  - Schirdewan, Alexander
A1  - Voss, Andreas
T1  - Short-term forecasting of life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias based on symbolic dynamics and finite-time growth rates
N2  - Ventricular tachycardia or fibrillation (VT-VF) as fatal cardiac arrhythmias are the main factors triggering sudden cardiac death. The objective of this study is to find early signs of sustained VT-VF in patients with an implanted cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD). These devices are able to safeguard patients by returning their hearts to a normal rhythm via strong defibrillatory shocks; additionally, they store the 1000 beat-to-beat intervals immediately before the onset of a life-threatening arrhythmia. We study these 1000 beat-to-beat intervals of 17 chronic heart failure ICD patients before the onset of a life-threatening arrhythmia and at a control time, i.e., without a VT-VF event. To characterize these rather short data sets, we calculate heart rate variability parameters from the time and frequency domain, from symbolic dynamics as well as the finite-time growth rates. We find that neither the time nor the frequency domain parameters show significant differences between the VT-VF and the control time series. However, two parameters from symbolic dynamics as well as the finite-time growth rates discriminate significantly both groups. These findings could be of importance in algorithms for next generation ICD's to improve the diagnostics and therapy of VT-VF.
Y1  - 2000
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/19895
ER  -