The VedaPulse digital pulse diagnosis: the survey of the functional state of internal organs and body systems

2012-11-09

The fact that a pulse can show how are a liver, a colon and other organs, was well known already for doctors of antiquity. Using of modern tools such as VedaPulse allows to do it with even greater precision.

Let us briefly consider, what traditional and digital pulse diagnosis VedaPulse are based on. What they have in common and what is different.

In traditional Oriental diagnosis a pulse wave is investigated in 6 points on wrists – three on the left, and three on the right. A pulse wave varies depending on how this or that organ and system works. In a palpation these changes are differently felt in these 6 points. There are a superficial and deep pulse. Experienced diagnostician evaluates many characteristics of a pulse wave. This is a very complex art, which are studied for years.

In digital pulse diagnosis VedaPulse the object of a study is a change in a heart rhythm. The duration of each cycle of the heart is different from the previous one. The device estimates it to within one millisecond. Sequential change of cardiac cycles durations forms a complex rhythm that is analized by the computer program. As in any profession, an experience comes with age of working. But the friendly interface of the program, equipped with numerous pop-up prompts, allows novice to master basic techniques in an hour. After that he is already able to carry out a diagnosis by himself and to assess the most important life indicators and a functional state of internal organs and body systems.

Seemingly different things — a pulse wave in arteries and a heart rate variability. What are the similarities? Those who only starts acquaintance with VedaPulse before buying it, often ask this question. To answer it, we must at least in general terms learn a circulatory system workings, and a basis of a pulse diagnosis.

A net of blood vessels penetrate a whole body. Blood movement begins from ventricles of a heart, then reaches most remote parts of a body by arteries and capillaries and returns to atria through veins. Branched circulatory system constantly must respond to different changing needs of a body. For example, in order to do any physical work, a serious flow of blood is required for muscles, for digesting a food the blood flow rushes to a stomach.
A circulatory system must respond to other needs of all internal organs in the same way. This response to changing needs is manifested primarily in changing of a heart rhythm: a heart as if listens to internal organs and adapts itself to their needs. A pulse wave change is a consequence of a heart rate change.

Warning! A mandatory requirement both in a pulse diagnosis by palpation and the “VedaPulse” digital pulse diagnosis is the need to exclude such powerful factors as physical exercises and a hearty meal. These all cause such a strong pulse change that “echoes” of other organs and systems become difficult to differentiate for a diagnostics.

In order to provide all organs with a blood, a nervous system collects the information about needs of organs and systems and regulates the work of a heart and blood vessels. The aim of any pulse diagnostics (both traditional and digital) is to find out how a circulatory system responds to needs of internal organs and body systems. Let’s deliberately simplify this scheme.
Let’s focus only at the main: a circulatory system and internal organs are closely connected. We should concentrate to the fact that an initial impetus of a blood begins in a heart, and then this impulse can be seen in arteries as a pulse wave. Precisely a heart sets a rhythm for a blood circulation in whole. As long as a heart beats, a blood pulses in arteries. That is, a reduction of a heart is a primary signal, and a blood pulsation in arteries is secondary. The further away a signal is from an initial source, the more it is distorted. It’s like a toy phone out of two boxes of a tooth powder, connected by a fiber: a sound, of course, is heard over a distance, but it’s distorted. Its quality is not so good as if we would stand near a speaker and hear him.

In the farthest point of a blood movement from a heart – in thin vessels – it is impossible to palpate this initial impulse. Only modern photoplethysmographic sensors may detect a pulse in capillaries of fingertips.

Let’s sum up. The initial response to needs of internal organs is a change in a heart rhythm. A structure of a pulse wave is a consequence of a changing heart rate.
But if we understand the simple fact what is a cause and what is an effect, maybe it reasonably get to the root of a pulse diagnostics? In a survey, the further from a source we carry out measurements, the greater are interferences, so we must listen to a heart…

Ancients could not do it, since human fingers couldn’t measure a cardiac cycle to within one millisecond. Therefore, they “listened” to a pulse wave. So they worked with a secondary rhythm. A pulse wave acted as a kind of a signal converter. Initial changes in a rhythm of a heart pulse, which differ from each other by few milliseconds, are transformed into a gentle vibration of a pulse wave. Then they are already able to be captured by a doctor’s sensitive finger.

Can you see the difference? There is an original rhythm, and there is a thundering echo. It’s like an earthquake on an ocean floor. The further away from an epicenter, the more gentle waves are. When these gentle waves meet with a shoal, so tsunami is formed. An observer located in high seas at an earthquake epicenter needs in accurate devices to detect this earthquake. Otherwise, the earthquake may not be noticed. An observer located on a beach, definitely doesn’t miss aftermaths of this earthquake, when they become a tsunami.

So ancient doctors had found such “shoals” where there was a resonance of primary impulses of a heart. Chineses call these points the Cun, Guan, Chi. The resonance with frequencies, given by a heart, takes place in them. Each frequency corresponds to some inner organ or system. So a judgement about the body or system state depends in which of points has been a resonance and with what strength of a finger pressing on it (on what depth). If the response has been very strong, then it indicates a hyperfunction of an organ, if it has been weak – an insufficiency. A healthy person has an equal pulsation in all points, under a weak or a strong finger pressing (besides a pulse intensity, other characteristics are estimated).

Echoing. The pulse wave diagnosis works with a secondary signal which is very much contaminated. A resiliency of arterial walls, a presence of cholesterol plaques – all of this make it difficult a formation of a pure pulse wave. Well, it’s like, for example, to naively expect a pure sound from a gramophone pipe that is cracked in few places and covered with a mud. It’s unreal. So blood vessels, like an old gramophone pipe, can not reproduce a pure sound of a primary heart rhythm.

Doctors in India, China and Tibet had been developing the art of “listening the music of a heart on an old gramophone” for thousands of years, and they are very good in it. Here, in Novosibirsk, we’ve been working with a primary signal only few years and do first steps in the interpretation of a pure sound of a heart. I realize this sounds very arrogant, but it’s the fact: we are working with an uncontaminated, pure signal. So we register such details, which were not available to doctors of antiquity.

The only question is in the interpretation. Correct to say, in nuances of the interpretation. We’ve found an association between frequencies of the heart rate variability and various organs and systems of a body. The algorithm of the VedaPulse program reflects the understanding of what is a hypofunction, what is a normal state, what is a hyperfunction of an organ.

Here, for example, the spectrogram of a man with a stomach ulcer.

Do you see the strong activity peak at the frequency of 0.165 Hz? This is the manifestation of a hyperfunction of a stomach meridian – the result of a gastric ulcer exacerbation. Below you can see how the program interprets this surge in the Meridians tab (the Chinese scheme).

Under the Chinese scheme is shown how it looks in the Ayurvedic scheme.

The value of mapping meridians in the Ayurvedic scheme in that they are grouped on the basis of what kind of dosha governs them. In this case, it is clear that a stomach meridian relates to a Kapha dosha.

Let’s summarize. We treat with the great respect to the world heritage – the traditional pulse diagnosis. However, a progress does not stand still. So we believe, the development of ideas embodied in the traditional pulse diagnosis, has to go onwards. It lays, first of all, in further complicating of an algorithm decryption of the heart rate variability. This does not exclude the possibility of creating a device for recording and an analysis of the pulse wave. We are aware of such developments and developers, who have chosen the path of working with the pulse wave. But we also understand difficulties that exist in a registration and interpretation of the pulse wave.

This article has described our reasons for choice the work with the heart rate variability, when several years ago we had started creating algorithms for diagnosis of regulatory systems of internal organs and body systems (they correspond to 12 meridians of the reflexology in the traditional Chinese medicine).
The ability to synthesize the heritage of the Oriental medicine and modern scientific proven and recognized techniques is also crucial for us. It is a question of the Heart Rate Variability (source http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/93/5/1043.full , translation into the Russian http://hrv.ru/standart/detvar1.html).

When creating VedaPulse, in its software analysis of heart biopotentials were included internationally recognized algorithms to analyze regulatory mechanisms (analysis of the nervous system functional state), and author’s algorithms of MD Oleg Sorokin, based on ideas of the traditional pulse diagnosis. This integrated approach allows to extend possibilities of the diagnosis. What is particularly important for us, this paves the way for a formation of the synthetic knowledge based on rethinking the heritage of ancestors from the standpoint of the science.