System for determining the condition of a patient's heart

摘要

A system for determining the condition of a patient's heart comprises a plurality of electrodes for producing cardiac signals and means for converting the cardiac signals into digital form. Data processing means is programmed to process the digital cardiac signals to detemine a plurality of parameters of the patient's heartbeat and determine the condition of the patient's heart using a binary decision tree algorithm. The algorithm has a plurality of decision nodes each of which makes a decision based upon the value(s) of a subset of the parameters, the decision criterion of at least one of the said decision nodes being modified according to the value of at least one parameter not of the subset. In addition, at at least one node, the respective subset of parameters may be determined according to the value of at least one parameter not of the subset.