Analyzing Heart Rate with BioBench

The following information also is located in the BioBench User Manual (linked below).

In addition to displaying and trending heart rate information during data acquisition, BioBench allows you to transform ECG data (or any other periodic waveform) into a heart rate (frequency) profile when viewing the signal in an analysis view.

To transform ECG data into a heart rate profile, perform the following steps:

1. Use the View menu to access one of the Analysis views. For this example, choose the 2 Graph Analysis view.



2. Select File»Open in the Analysis mode and use the Browse button to navigate to the \biobench\examples directory. Highlight the examples directory and click on the Select button, as shown in the following dialog box.



3. The following dialog box lists all the files in the \biobench\examples directory. The example file A Demo File.bb contains eight signals of physiological data, two of which are variable ECG waveforms. Open this example file by clicking on the file and then clicking on the OPEN button which returns you to the Analysis view and displays the first two signals in the file on the two graphs of the Analysis view. The ECG data appears in the upper graph and a blood pressure waveform appears in the lower graph.



4. Click on the signal label in the upper left corner of the bottom graph. The Select Signal dialog box shown in the following figure appears. Highlight the ECG signal in the List of Signals.



5. Enter Heart Rate Profile in the Signal Label field. Then, in the Transform area, select the beats per minute (BPM) option. Be sure to apply the following settings for the BPM parameters:
   • %Threshold = 80
   • Width = 3
   • Use Derivative, checked
   • Mode, Maximums
   
   
   These parameters will generate the heart rate profile of the ECG. Click on the OK button.



6. Inspect the following figure as an example of the graph of the heart rate from the ECG data. The top graph shows the raw ECG signal, while the bottom graph shows the corresponding heart rate profile. To view the entire data file, click on the middle navigation button shown to the left of this paragraph.

Related Links:
BioBench User Manual

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