Noise Resistant Method for Cardiac Pulse Wave Arrival Time Estimation

Abstract

Pulse arrival time is the time interval which is needed for pulse wave to travel the distance from the heart to some distal place on the body. Almost all definitions of pulse arrival time estimation are based on high quality photoplethysmogram signals. However, when subject movement is involved movement artifacts dominate in the signal, e.g., records from orthostatic test, and estimation of pulse arrival time becomes complicated. The aim of this study is to present pulse arrival time estimation method which is based on instantaneous phase shift estimation between extracted fundamental frequency components and compare it with a classical method which based on photoplethysmogram signal derivative maximum. The results showed that the proposed method is better for pulse arrival time estimation when signals are noisy. The method yielded pulse arrival time with the highest agreement, accuracy, precision and lowest variability. There is high intraclass correlation when signal to noise ratio are 0 dB and 10 dB (0.5317 and 0.8630). The classical method incorrectly estimates pulse arrival time when are using real signals. However, larger dataset is needed in order to get statistically significant results. Variability of pulse arrival time and arterial blood pressure is higher in the vertical posture.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.eee.20.8.8442