Minnesota code: A fuzzy logic-based approach

The advances in computer science and informatics provide the basis for creating modern health diagnostics algorithms and instruments. One of the evaluation methods of reference ECG signals is based on the Minnesota code. This is a rule based system, which provides a value based criteria for specific ECG parameters. There are several studies which have tried to determine the effectiveness of the computer based Minnesota code compared to human usage of the code system. The results showed that computers are as effective in the evaluation of ECG signal with the Minnesota code as humans are with visual analysis. The code system is sensitive to waveform changes, but is not affected by conduction disturbances and arrhythmic events. An additional downside is that the values predefined in the tree-based rule system are crisp values, which means that any noise or a minor delay can cause the rest of the Minnesota code to be ignored. In this paper the authors propose a fuzzy-based approach to bypass these known issues.