Real Time Holter Monitoring of Biomedical Signals

Monitoring of the electrocardiogram during normal activity using Holter devices has become standard procedure for detection of cardiac arrhythmias, transient ischemic episodes and silent myocardial ischemia. Existing devices mostly record "twenty-four" hour activity and then perform off-line record analysis. We present realization of an intelligent DSP-based Holter device for continuous electrocardiogram monitoring. Battery operated Holter device is realized using Texas Instruments TMS320C542 DSP board with Del Mar PWA Amplifier Digicorder. The proposed device could be used either for acquisition of anomalous ECG sequences (arrhythmic events, ST segment deviation, etc.) and storing to flash memory, or as a warning device during normal activity or exercise stress test. Implemented environment could be used as high-performance input/output processor. It could provide 3D virtual reality stereo output and new inputs such as user’s emotional state, which could be used as significant feedback for computer applications. 1