New Algorithm for Quantification of High Frequency and Non-deterministic events of Heart
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Background: Heart signals represent an important way to evaluate cardiovascular function and often what is desired is to quantify the level of some signal of interest against the louder backdrop of the beating of the heart itself. An example of this type of application is the quantification of cavitation in mechanical heart valve patients.
Methods: An algorithm is presented for the quantification of high-frequency, non-deterministic events such as cavitation from recorded signals. A closed-form mathematical analysis of the algorithm investigates its capabilities. The algorithm is implemented on real heart signals to investigate usability and implementation issues. Improvements are suggested to the base algorithm including aligning heart sounds, and the implementation of the Short-Time Fourier Transform to study the time evolution of the energy in the signal.