An Assessment Tool for Effective Monitoring of Autonomic Nervous System Activity in Healthy People

抄録

This paper proposes an application that analyzes and displays electrocardiograms (ECG; electrical activity of the heart over time) and plethysmograms (PTG; pulse waves produced by the heart pumping blood to the periphery) measured simultaneously. Recently in developed countries, chronic conditions typified by lifestyle-related diseases have become the leading cause of death. Simplified monitoring of the condition can be an effective approach to disease prevention and health promotion. We have focused on autonomic nervous system activity (ANSA) because it responds to stress as well as to changes in dietary patterns, and is correlated with hypertension, the source of some diseases, such as coronary disease. In this paper, we deal with both ECGs and PTGs as part of the biological data that reflects ANSA. The proposed application enables doctors to seamlessly negotiate analyzed waveforms and index charts of ECGs and PTGs in sync with each other. It also helps them comprehend the transition of ANSA. It offers a user interface (UI) that enables doctors to observe the two measures and the relationship between them for a quick assessment of ANSA; the sonification function of the ECG indices is implemented for providing the multi-modality of the UI. An experiment was conducted to confirm the feasibility of the analysis method of the application.