APPLICATION OF NEW METHODS FOR THE ANALYSIS OF HEART RATE VARIABILITY INCHRONIC CHAGASIC PATIENTS

This work describes two new methods for the analysis of Heart Rate Variability (HRV) that are being implemented in last generation high resolution electrocardiography equipments. One of the methods, the Lomb periodogram, avoids the problems associated with the irregular sampling and it produces a robust Power Spectral Density (PSD) estimation in presence of noise and ectopy beats. The second method performs a Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA) that tries to quantify the non lineal dynamics involved in the time series of intercomplex intervals (RR) obtained from the electrocardiographic signal. This work reports results obtained when applying both methods to a group of chronic chagasic patients. Results obtained when applying the Lomb method for estimating the Power Spectral Density indicate an alteration of simpatho-vagal balance in chagasic patients. Similarly, the DFA method enables discrimination between the chagasic patients and control subjects