Temporal Variation Measure Analysis: An Improved Second-Order Difference Plot

TL;DR

This paper introduces an improved analysis method for second-order difference plots to better quantify and classify heart rate variability by extracting acceleration information and employing a new temporal variation entropy indicator.

Contribution

It presents a novel temporal variation measure analysis that enhances the descriptive power of second-order difference plots for heart rate variability.

Findings

Effective in recognizing physiological heart statuses

Improves extraction of acceleration information

Successful application of temporal variation entropy

Abstract

In this study, an improved second-order difference plot is proposed to analyze the variability of heart rate variability. Although the variation of physiological status of cardiovascular system can be shown graphically by the second-order difference plot, the descriptive ability of existing indicators for this plot is insufficient. As a result, the physiological information contained in the second-order difference plot cannot be extracted adequately. Addressing the problem, the temporal variation measure analysis is presented to describe distribution patterns of scatter points in the second-order difference plot quantitatively and extract the acceleration information for variation of heart rate variability. Experiment results demonstrate the effectiveness of the temporal variation measure analysis. As a quantitative indicator, the temporal variation entropy is properly designed and successfully applied in the recognition and classification of the physiological statuses of the heart.