Abstract
Short-term properties of atrial fibrillation (AF) frequency, f-wave morphology, and irregularity parameters have been thoroughly studied, but not long-term properties. In the present work, f-wave morphology is characterized by principal component analysis, introducing a novel temporal parameter defined by the cumulative normalized variance of the three largest principal components \((r_3)\). Based on 7-day recordings from nine patients with stable chronic heart failure and persistent AF, long-term properties were studied in terms of \(r_3\), AF frequency, and sample entropy \((SampEn)\). The main result of the present study is that detection of circadian rhythms depends on the parameter considered: rhythms were found in six \((r_3, SampEn)\) and five (AF frequency) patients, but not always in the same patient. Another important result is that circadian rhythms detected in 7-day recordings could not always be detected in 24-h periods, thus shedding new light on the results in previous studies which all were based on 24-h recordings. Infradian rhythms were found in four \((r_3, SampEn)\) and one (AF frequency) patients.
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Acknowledgments
This work has been partially supported by Research Projects from the Spanish Goverment TEC2010-19263 and TEC2013-48439-C4-1-R, and by the Prometeo Project of the Secretariat for the Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation of the Republic of Ecuador. Oscar Barquero-Pérez is supported by FPU grant AP2009-1726.
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Goya-Esteban, R., Sandberg, F., Barquero-Pérez, Ó. et al. Long-term characterization of persistent atrial fibrillation: wave morphology, frequency, and irregularity analysis. Med Biol Eng Comput 52, 1053–1060 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-014-1199-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-014-1199-x