A Proof-of-Concept Study: Simple and Effective Detection of P and T Waves in Arrhythmic ECG Signals

• Published in: Bioengineering (Basel) Vol. 3; no. 4; p. 26
• Main Authors: Elgendi, Mohamed, Meo, Marianna, Abbott, Derek
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 17.10.2016; MDPI
• Subjects: Abnormalities; affordable healthcare; Algorithms; Arrhythmia; Bioengineering; Cardiac arrhythmia; Communication; EKG; Electrocardiography; Field programmable gate arrays; Heart; International conferences; mobile health; Morphology; numerically-efficient algorithms; P waves; Portable equipment; Robustness (mathematics); Sensitivity; Signal processing; Ventricle; Wavelet transforms; Australia; Canada; United States > US; mobile health; affordable healthcare; numerically-efficient algorithms
• ISSN: 2306-5354; 2306-5354
• DOI: 10.3390/bioengineering3040026

A robust and numerically-efficient method based on two moving average filters, followed by a dynamic event-related threshold, has been developed to detect P and T waves in electrocardiogram (ECG) signals as a proof-of-concept. Detection of P and T waves is affected by the quality and abnormalities in ECG recordings; the proposed method can detect P and T waves simultaneously through a unique algorithm despite these challenges. The algorithm was tested on arrhythmic ECG signals extracted from the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database with 21,702 beats. These signals typically suffer from: (1) non-stationary effects; (2) low signal-to-noise ratio; (3) premature atrial complexes; (4) premature ventricular complexes; (5) left bundle branch blocks; and (6) right bundle branch blocks. Interestingly, our algorithm obtained a sensitivity of 98.05% and a positive predictivity of 97.11% for P waves, and a sensitivity of 99.86% and a positive predictivity of 99.65% for T waves. These results, combined with the simplicity of the method, demonstrate that an efficient and simple algorithm can suit portable, wearable, and battery-operated ECG devices.