Loss of Complexity of the Cardiac Bioelectrical Signal as an Expression of Patient Outcomes

The loss of complexity of the cardiac bioelectrical signal, measured with tools of nonlinear dynamics (NLD), is studied in patients with very different pathologies. Two types of scenarios are studied: (a) patients who enter the critical care unit and recover from their condition; (b) severe patients whose condition worsen and finally die. It is shown that as the severity of the patients increases, the complexity of their cardiac bioelectric signal decreases. On the other hand, if patients, despite being severe, manage to recover, the cardiac bioelectric signal recovers its complexity