Wavelet processing of electrophysiological signals

Many physiological signals can be described either as isolated pulses, or as quasi-periodic sequences of isolated pulses. Wavelets are powerful tools for the representation and analysis of such physiological waveforms, since a wavelet has a finite duration (compact support), unlike Fourier transforms based on sinusoids of infinite duration. Two examples of physiological signal processing using wavelet bases will be studied in this article. The first example is the compression of electrocardiogram (ECG) signals using an associated Hermite wavelet basis; the second example shows the removal of artifacts present in non-invasive blood pressure measurement (NIBP) signals.