Wireless Enabled Holter Monitor and ECG Analysis System

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Wireless Enabled Holter Monitor and ECG Analysis
System

• Final Year Project
• 4th Electronic and Computing Eng.
• Brendan Maguire
• 03633721

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Holter Monitor Systems

• Portable device for continuously monitoring the
  electrical activity of a heart (ECG waveforms)
• Records electrical signals from the heart via
  series of electrodes (usually 3-7) attached to
  the patients chest
• Sampling frequency of between 500Hz and 1kHz,
  although more complex monitors can operate at
  10kHz, used to identify pacemaker events
• Used for extended periods of time (24 - 48 hours)
• Its extended recording period is useful for
  observing occasional abnormal heart rhythms

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Aim of this Project

• Current Holter Monitors record the patients
  heartbeat for a period of time and then the
  recorded samples are sent to the hospital for
  analysis
• This project involves designing a wireless
  enabled Holter Monitoring System which
• Allows speedier access to the ECG signal by using
  a home wireless network or WLAN hotspots
• Incorporates the use of GPS technology so that
  high risk patients can be located quicker on the
  detection of a serious cardiac event

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Project Milestones

• Pass
• Development of a system capable of sampling a
  single ECG channel and transmission of this
  information over WLAN interface for storage in
  database
• Development of a basic GUI to display the stored
  ECG waveform
• Average
• Provision of web based interface to access (via
  PC or PDA) stored ECG information including
  standard web security functionality

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Project Milestones

• Good
• Support of GPRS interface as a back-up interface
  for downloading sampled ECG information
• Integrate support for GPS interface and storage
  of determined location information in database

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Project Milestones

• Very Good
• Support for some advanced features such as
• Diagnostic and health check mode
• User triggered ECG recording mode
• High frequency ECG sampling mode
• Multi-channel ECG sampling support
• Real time streaming of ECG to web based
  interfaces on remote PC or PDA

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Project Milestones

• Excellent
• Support for ECG signal processing software such
  as those to support
• Heart rate histogram determination
• Non-urgent anomaly identification
• Emergency anomaly detection

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Research Undertaken

• Selection of platform for the implementation of
  the Holter Monitor device
• Two platforms researched
• Arcom Zeus
• Gumstix Connex 400xm

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Platform Comparison

• Ease of getting started
• Arcom Zeus comes with all peripherals attached
  and ready to use
• Gumstix Connex 400xm requires expansion packs to
  implement the GPS and WLAN functionality. These
  expansion packs (GPSstix wifistix) must be
  bought separately and attached by the user
• Suitability for the Project
• Arcom Zeus has much more functionality than is
  required for this project
• Gumstix Connex 400xm can be tailored to your
  specific needs
• Support
• Arcom provides free technical support
• Gumstix does not provide support although there
  is a big online support community which helps
  each other out with technical issues

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Platform Comparison
Attribute Arcom Zeus Gumstix Connex 400xm GPSstix WIFIstix
Processor 520MHz Intel XScale PXA270 400MHz Intel XScale PXA255
Memory 128MB DRAM 32MB Flash 64MB SDRAM 16MB Flash
ADC channels 16 4
Digital I/O 24 38
Operating System Embedded Linux Linux
Dimensions (H x W x D) 64mm X 238.5mm X 136.5mm 85mm X 35mm X 25mm
Price 1,090 338 270
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Platform Comparison

• The system will be developed using the Gumstix
  products for the following reasons
• Cheaper
• Smaller
• Easy to expand functionality at a later date by
  swapping expansion packs

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• Any Questions??