Validity and reliability of Omegawave® device to measure RR intervals at rest

Abstract

Objective The aim of this study was to validate the measurements of the RR intervals taken at rest by the Omegawave® device (OWD) by comparing them to the measurements simultaneously made by an ECG, considered to be our gold standard. Methods Five rest measurements were made for 10 minutes on five different days to 10 men and three women participated in this study (24.8 ± 5.05 years; 71.82 ± 11.02 kg; 174.35 ± 9.13 cm). RR intervals were simultaneously recorded using OWD and ECG The processing of ECG signals (digitised at 43 samples per second) included the detrending of baseline noise and a high-pass filtering for emphasizing the QRS complexes and attenuating the T waves, often prominent in sport populations. After obtaining the gold-standard beat times from the ECG, the beat times from the OWD were automatically aligned to them and compared to check whether both measurements could be considered superimposable. A Bland-Altman analysis was applied to the complete time series of each subject and it was repeated for the five measurements made for all subjects. Results The results suggest that the RR interval measurements performed by the OWD have very strong agreement with those made with an ECG. Deviations not exceeding 25 ms could be expected in 95% of the cases and this is within manageable ranges both for clinical practice and sports. Conclusions To conclude, RR intervals measured by the OWD can be considered highly consistent with those obtained from the gold standard (ECG).