Online analysis of intracranial pressure waves.

Brain pressure waves, particularly B-waves, as they were described by Lundberg contain valuable diagnostic information about the patient's status. So far, this information cannot be used on a daily routine basis because manual analysis of the recorded ICP data is very time consuming. Furthermore, the analysis is only retrospective, after incidents of interest occurred. To overcome these drawbacks, an automated B-wave detection system has been developed. Using a direct spectral estimation method (so called ARMA approach) the most significant spectral components and their amplitudes in the ICP signal are identified. The frequency with the biggest amplitude inside the B-wave band is a reliable indicator of B-wave activity and can be displayed on-line on a bedside computer.