Detection and Analysis of Heart Rate Variability in Young and Postmenopausal women in Different Postures

Abstract

Postmenopause is the naturally occurring stage in woman’s life after the permanent cessation of the menstruation longer than 12 months. The transition from the young to the postmenopausal stage impacts the variation in the heart rate. It is important to analyze and detect the variation in Heart Rate Variability (HRV) between young and postmenopausal women in different postures to understand the impact of the age and physical activities on the autonomic health of heart. The aim of this study is to (i) investigate the effect of autonomic regulations of heart rate in young and postmenopausal women in various postures and (ii) determine the possibilities for the reliable, efficient and accurate HRV analysis signal processing algorithm in detecting HRV variations between young and postmenopausal women. The experiments were performed on 25 young women and 25 old women in the postmenopausal phase. Various linear methods have been applied for analysing and detecting HRV variations between young and postmenopausal women. The results concluded that the postmenopausal group showed significantly lower (p < 0.05) values of SDNN, NN50, pNN50, RMSSD, and HRVTi than young group both in the lying and standing postures. These results indicate a decrease in the parasympathetic activity in postmenopausal as compared to the young women due to the age. Further, the performance of linear methods in detecting HRV variations between postmenopausal and young women in different postures was calculated. It is also concluded from the results that HRVi outperforms other HRV analysis methods in detecting HRV variations between postmenopausal and young women.