Feasibility of heart rate variability analysis with heart sounds

Heart rate variability (HRV) analysis, which is providing information about the autonomic nervous system with noninvasive method, performed with using digitized electrocardiogram records. In this study, whether HRV analysis can be done from heart sounds (which are recorded with electronic stethoscopes) has been investigated. For this purpose, an algorithm has been developed for detecting the consecutive heart time period from simultaneously recorded heart sounds and ECG. Some standard HRV parameters are calculated and compared from the HRV derived from ECG and heart sound signals. The experimental results show that, both HRV parameters derived from the heart sounds while the resting position and the ECG are very close. In conclusion, they can be used in HRV analysis.