Diastolic timed vibrator: Applying direct vibration in diastole to patients with acute coronary ischemia during the pre-hospitalization phase

Abstract

A biomedical device that applies vibration to the chest of a patient during the pre-hospitalization phase of acute coronary ischemia is introduced. This device improves the blood flow in order to remove the thrombosis. In order to help the heart pumping mechanism, vibration is applied during diastole only and hence this device is called a Diastolic Timed Vibrator (DTV). We introduce two algorithms (slope-lookup and slope-energy) to detect diastole by using an electrocardiogram signal available in most ambulances and pre-emergency units. The robustness of the algorithms were examined by considering many types of arrhythmias that might occur during acute ischemia. We show that the slope-energy is a robust method and can be used to detect diastole interval in most types of arrhythmias. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.