Application of principal component analysis to ECG signals for automated diagnosis of cardiac health

Electrocardiogram (ECG) is the P, QRS, T wave indicating the electrical activity of the heart. The subtle changes in amplitude and duration of ECG cannot be deciphered precisely by the naked eye, hence imposing the need for a computer assisted diagnosis tool. In this paper we have automatically classified five types of ECG beats of MIT-BIH arrhythmia database. The five types of beats are Normal (N), Right Bundle Branch Block (RBBB), Left Bundle Branch Block (LBBB), Atrial Premature Contraction (APC) and Ventricular Premature Contraction (VPC). In this work, we have compared the performances of three approaches. The first approach uses principal components of segmented ECG beats, the second approach uses principal components of error signals of linear prediction model, whereas the third approach uses principal components of Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) coefficients as features. These features from three approaches were independently classified using feed forward neural network (NN) and Least Square-Support Vector Machine (LS-SVM). We have obtained the highest accuracy using the first approach using principal components of segmented ECG beats with average sensitivity of 99.90%, specificity of 99.10%, PPV of 99.61% and classification accuracy of 98.11%. The system developed is clinically ready to deploy for mass screening programs.

► ECG is the P, QRS and T waves indicating electrical activity of heart.
► Five types of beats of MIT-BIH database are classified.
► Three independent approaches were studied with different features.
► Principal components of segmented ECG provided 98.11% of average accuracy.