Comparative Analysis of Resting Heart Rate Measurement at Multiple Instances in a Single Day

Resting Heart Rate (RHR) is used as an indicator of cardiovascular health and overall fitness. Clinically, RHR is measured from beat-to-beat heart rate data during the day when the body is at rest (RHR_rest), typically for ≥ 5 minutes. In this paper, we have compared the RHR measurements done at multiple instances in a single day namely, [Formula: see text], RHR immediately after waking up (RHR_morning) and RHR during sleep (RHR_sleep). The significance of measuring RHR_sleep and why it can be used as a potential replacement for the conventional methods is analysed through an experimental study in this paper. The results obtained using the proposed method stands out in terms of repeatability. RHR measurements were taken for 3 instances on a single day for 9 subjects on 5 alternate workdays. A comparative analysis was performed by measuring the repeatability coefficient (RC) and Standard Deviation (SD) on the RHR measurements taken during multiple instances for each subject separately. The average RC and SD over the 5 alternate workdays was 5 bpm and SD was 2 bpm for RHR_slep. For RHR_rest and RHR_morning, the average RC was 12 bpm and 11 bpm and the average SD was 5 bpm and 4 bpm respectively, which is comparatively higher. Hence this method can be potentially adopted instead of the conventional methods as the RHRsleep parameter is more reliable and precise due to its repeatable nature.