A Study on the Quantitative Pulse Type Classification of the Photoplethysmography

Over the past few years, a considerable number of methods have been proposed and applied for the classification of photoplethysmography (PPG). Most of the previous studies, however, focused on the qualitative description of the pulse type according to specific disease and thus provided ambiguous criteria to interpreters. In order to screen out this problem, we present a quantitative method for the pulse type classification including the second derivative of photoplethysmography (SDPTG). In the PPG signal, we have classified the signal as 4 types using the position and the presence of the dicrotic wave. In addition, we have categorized the SDPTG signal as 7 types using the position and the presence of "c" and "d" wave and the sign of "c" wave. In order to check the efficacy of the proposed pulse type classification rule, we collected pulse signals from 155 subjects with different ages and sex. From the correlation analysis, Class 1(p<0.01) and Class 2(p<0.01) in the PPG signal are significantly correlated with ages. In a similar manner Class A(p<0.01), Class C(p<0.05), Class D(p<0.01), and Class F(p<0.01) in the SDPTG signal are considerably correlated with the ages. From these observations, and some earlier ones [4], [5], we can conclude that since the newly proposed method has objectivity and clarity in pulse type classification, this method can be used as an alternative of previous classification rules including similar age-related characteristics.

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