Research And Development Of Perinatal Depression Quantitative Diagnosis System

Perinatal depression is occurring depressive symptoms in women during pregnancy andchildbirth. Together with menopausal syndrome and premenstrual syndrome, it is one of theso-called “Three major killers of women mental health”. The incidence of perinataldepression in pregnant women is much higher than the incidence of depression in the generalpopulation, and presents an increasing trend. An effective measure to reduce the incidence isimproving the diagnostic screening. Methods currently used in clinical to diagnose theperinatal depression and depression are basically the same. It can be divided into threecategories: scale screening, blood biochemistry test and imageological diagnosis. In recentyears, heart rate variability (HRV) analysis methods have been developed rapidly in the fieldof diagnosis of mental disease, especially anxiety disorders and depression.The autonomic nervous system (ANS) of patients with depression is different from thatof the normal people, mainly reflects in two aspects: the increased parasympathetic nervefunction and the decreased sympathetic nerve function. We can use heart rate variabilityanalysis methods to quantify these changes. In this paper, we developed a perinatal depressionquantitative diagnosis system. Firstly, we designed different test status, including rest status,deep breathing status, valsalva status and standing status, to enhance the subsystem of theANS. Based on the ECG and pulse wave recorded during the different test status, we canobtain the HRV curve after data correction and peak detection processing steps. And then,HRV time domain analysis, frequency domain analysis and nonlinear analysis methods areused to achieve HRV parameters, which are used to quantify the ANS. Finally, machinelearning method is used to develop the relationship between HRV parameters and depressionlevel. Based on numerous clinical cases, we trained the perinatal depression quantitativediagnosis model, which can be used to screening and diagnosis of new case.This paper presents a perinatal depression quantitative diagnosis system, including theacquisition system and the software. The software consists of four functional modules: dataacquisition and display module, information management module, parameter analysis module,and depression assessment results module. The software system integrates all the dataprocessing steps: data acquisition process, ECG and pulse wave signal processing, HRVparameter calculation, characteristic parameters, as well as training the model to quantitativediagnosis depression level. The purpose of the diagnosis system described above is toquantify the level of depression of new cases. The application of "People’s Republic of China Mental Health Law", indicates thatmental health problems can not be ignored and has attracted national attention. Therefore,it has very highly social benefits to provide scientific and reliable depression screeningequipment for the perinatal women, in order to enhance the awareness of perinatal mentalillness. In addition, there is no self-developed products focus on the paper’s key point till nowin our country. Results of this paper once developed into products, will have a larger marketspace, as well as very highly economic benefits.