Online Suppression of Motion Artifacts During Treadmill ECG

The electrocardiogram (ECG) is widely used for diagnosis of heart diseases. Cardiac stress test/Treadmill ECG stress test is carried out during treadmill exercise usually involves walking on a treadmill or paddling bicycle Ergometer while heart rhythm, blood pressure and breathing rate are monitored. If one has coronary artery disease, or an irregular heart rhythm (arrhythmia) then the patient is suggested for cardiac stress test. Putting stress on the heart with exercise or certain medications makes the heart work harder. The acquired stress ECG signal is degraded due to motion artifacts as the body is continuously in motion. ECG morphology gets strongly affected by movement artifacts (MAs), which must be therefore effectively removed for proper diagnosis of coronary artery disease, arrhythmia or heart attack. This paper describes the real time suppression of motion artifacts that occurs in the ECG during treadmill exercise with the help of Discrete Wavelet Transform using MATLAB.