Abstract
The 12-lead Electrocardiogram (ECG) is a widely used diagnostic tool for assessing cardiac activity. Although its electrode configuration has been standardised since1942, the number of electrodes and each of their anatomical positions are ‘suboptimal’ in detecting cardiac pathologies such as Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI).The Body Surface Potential Map (BSPM) is an alternative ECG technique that captures more cardiac information and has a higher sensitivity in detecting certain cardiac abnormalities. The BSPM, however, has not yet been accepted for routine clinical practice partly due to a lack of clinician-friendly tools for managing and visualising BSPM data.Following a review of ECG storage techniques, this Thesis presents an interoperable BSPM storage format that supports all BSPM variants. In a similar fashion, following a review of electrocardiographic visualisation, an intuitive Web-based BSPM visualisation system that exhibits a number of novel interactive features is presented in Chapter 5. Following this work, a number of peripheral studies were completed and presented in Chapter 6. This includes an advanced 12-lead ECG viewer. This viewer includes a visualisation feature for transforming the 12-lead ECG into an estimated BSPM. A knowledge representation framework called ecgRuleML was also designed. The ecgRuleML framework can be used to store, define and share rules that comprise diagnostic ECG criteria. Given the syntax of ecgRuleML is both human and machine readable, it promotes the interoperability of ECG criteria amongst clinicians and heterogeneous ECG machines. Finally, a simulation tool called the Electrode Misplacement Simulator (EMS) was developed and described in Chapter 6. The EMS uses BSPM data to simulate the effects of electrode misplacement when recording a12-lead ECG. The utility of the EMS for educating clinical physiologists was evaluated in a cross-sectional classroom study (refer to Chapter 7). Both the BSPM viewer and the EMS also underwent a usability evaluation. The closing Chapter outlines each hypothesis and provides a summary of contributions. The publications made during this PhD program have been listed in Appendix A.
| Date of Award | Feb 2012 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Supervisor | Dewar Finlay (Supervisor), Christopher Nugent (Supervisor) & George Moore (Supervisor) |
Keywords
- electrocardiogram (ECG)
- body surface potential mapping (BSPM)
- cardiac diagnostics
- data visualisation
- electrode misplacement simulation (EMS)
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