Improvement of the frequency responses in an ambulatory ECG system by the natural observation method

The ambulatory ECG system has been used not only in detecting arrhythmia but also in the diagnosis of myocardial ischemia. Therefore, it is necessary to reproduce ECG waveforms as accurately as possible. However, ambulatory ECG waveforms which are in clinical use are apt to be distorted because the frequency responses do not satisfy the AHA (American Heart Association) recommendation which is well accepted as the standard of the conventional ECG system. An improvement of frequency response is reported here using a compensation circuit, whose theory is based on the natural observation method. Since our system is adjusted with square waveforms and composed of a simple analog circuit, it can be compensated easily in real time. In this paper, our newly developed system and various improved ECG signals are presented and compared with conventional ECG signals. As a result, we could obtain less distorted waveforms than from commercially available devices. This new approach enables us to obtain diagnostic information of the distortion-free ST segment in ECG waveforms.