Multiscale analysis of heart beat interval increment series and its clinical significance

Analysis of multiscale entropy (MSE) and multiscale standard deviation (MSD) are performed for both the heart rate interval series and the interval increment series. For the interval series, it is found that, it is impractical to discriminate the diseases of atrial fibrillation (AF) and congestive heart failure (CHF) unambiguously from the healthy. A clear discrimination from the healthy, both young and old, however, can be made in the MSE analysis of the increment series where we find that both CHF and AF sufferers have significantly low MSE values in the whole range of time scales investigated, which reveals that there are common dynamic characteristics underlying these two different diseases. In addition, we propose the sample entropy (SE) corresponding to time scale factor 4 of increment series as a diagnosis index of both AF and CHF, and the reference threshold is recommended. Further indication that this index can help discriminate sensitively the mild heart failure (cardiac function classes 1 and 2) from the healthy gives a clue to early clinic diagnosis of CHF.