Abstract—In this article, a study has been carried out to analyze the effect of aging, in healthy individuals, on heart rate variability (HRV) using time-domain, frequency-domain and Poincaré plot techniques. For this study data is taken from a standard database i.e. Fantasia Database which contains 20 elderly (68-85 years old) and 20 young (21-34 years old) strictly tested healthy individuals for comparability of result more extensive. The results convey that (i) The time domain methods provide a distinction in young and elderly groups in terms of mean coefficient of variance reduced by 47.03%, mean standard deviation of all RR intervals reduced by 45.37%, mean standard deviation of differences between adjacent RR intervals reduced by 54.81%, and mean root-mean-square value of successive differences between adjacent RR intervals reduced by 47.14% of young age group. (ii) In frequency domain analysis, Welch method shows that the peak frequencies VLF, LF and HF are not much affected by aging and power spectral density reduced significantly, particularly LF and HF reduced to one sixth that of young age group. The power ratio LF/HF is same for both age group which suggest that aging establishes a new equilibrium between two branches of autonomic nervous system. (iii) Auto Regressive (AR) method provides that peak frequencies VLF, HF are not much affected by aging but LF shifted to higher side and power values are reduced to one tenth of young age group.(iv)As compared to Welch method, AR provides higher power, lower LF/HF, smooth and high resolution peaks in all frequency bands of young and elderly age group but the disadvantages of the AR spectrum are the complexity of model order selection while Welch method allows simple and high processing speed algorithm. (v) From Poincaré Plot it is found that Poincaré cloud is spread over a wider area for young age group as compared to elderly and there is reduction of 20.9% in SD1, 45.35% in SD2, 41.37% in standard deviation of RR interval and 24.28% in ellipse area in elderly group as compared to young group. Thus with all measures HRV declines with aging.
Index Terms—Welch, HRV, poincaré plot, auto regressive
The authors are with the National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar 144011, India (e-mail: kp110585@gmail.com, sainibss@gmail.com).
Cite: Krishan Pal Singh Yadav and B. S. Saini, "Study of the Aging Effects on HRV Measures in Healthy Subjects," International Journal of Computer Theory and Engineering vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 346-349, 2012.
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