Introduction:

The chaotic behavior of normal and acute cardiac dynamics has been characterized in the context of theory of dynamical systems and fractal geometry.

Objective:

to establish a new diagnostic method for assessing cardiac dynamics in ICU patients, for 16 hours.

Methodology:

This is a study in post-surgical patients admitted to intensive care (ICU) and in healthy subjects, taking a total of 47 continuous electrocardiographic recordings and/ or Holter, normal and acute pathology, evaluated in 16 hours. Induction with two normal and three UCI dynamics was developed; from the maximum and minimum values of the heart/time and total frequency of beats/minute for 16 hours recorded attractors they were constructed to assess their areas of occupation and fractal dimension, in order to establish differences and equalities regarding normal states and pathological. Sensitivity and specificity measurements were performed with the remaining dynamic to compare mathematical diagnosis with clinical diagnosis.

Results:

Space occupancy heart attractors differ dynamic normal cardiac dynamics with chronic and acute illness, in addition detecting dynamic pathological with above normal limits values, achieving sensitivity values of 0.937 and specificity of 1.

Conclusion:

a new methodology for evaluating cardiac dynamics useful for clinical monitoring in ICU patients was established.