Health Assessment products: FAQ
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Product specific FAQ:
General questions:
Answers:
What is heart rate variability?
Heart rate variability, or HRV, is the natural rise and fall of your heart rate in response to your breathing, blood pressure, hormones and even emotions. In a healthy heart, the rate should increase as you inhale and decrease as you exhale. HRV is reflective of the general wellness state of the organism.
Why should I use HRV in my practice?
HRV (heart rate variability) is relatively young but one of the fastest developing area of biomedical knowledge. It provides special methods of analysis of variability in heart rhythm caused by various physiological mechanisms of functional regulation of the body and primarily by the autonomic nervous system.
Vast number of recent research studies clearly show that the autonomic nervous system plays key role in maintaining our body’s well-being by keeping it in the optimal state of inner regulation. There are many factors of stress nature that cause this regulation to fail for shorter or longer periods of time. Such repetitive failures lead to developing various maladies.
Using HRV methods we can enable you to get very accurate quantitative reliable and placebo free assessment of the autonomic function before such failures of the functional regulation lead to full symptomatic clinical cases. Proper autonomic assessment can help to detect health problems at early stages and optimize their proper care.
What is Autonomic Balance?
By measuring the heart’s rhythmic patterns (heart rate variability) the Inner Balance Scan can assess the Autonomic Nervous System's state of balance very accurately. 90% of the body’s functions are controlled by the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). The ANS is like the brake pedal and gas pedal for an automobile. Sympathetic regulation is the Gas and Parasympathetic activation is the Brake. It is essential to have both to run the vehicle appropriately, safely and efficiently. If too much Gas (Stress) is used, this over charges the vehicle. Apply the brakes (Relaxation) too hard or too often, the system is sluggish. This analogy works in a simplified manner to express how the autonomic nervous system functions in the human body.
ANS Balance is an essential key to health and a stable immune system. Balance and homeostasis is the key to health. The teeter–totter of the Inner Balance Scan offers access to this valuable healing knowledge.
What is Homeostasis?
Homeostasis is defined as the body's ability to maintain an inner balance in the face of the changing conditions of our external and internal environment. Inner balance is the key to longevity, a healthy response to the stress of life and a healthy immune system, which is the key to longevity. Are you in Balance?
Please tell me why your product is
better than the other products out there?
Biocom products are known for years as the most superior in the market of professional assessment of the autonomic function, physiological monitoring and biofeedback.
Biocom products were designed by top notch professionals in the industry of biomedical technologies with over 25 years of professional experience.
All Biocom products are based on scientifically validated results of special research studies and acknowledged by leading professionals and academic organizations such as Baylor University, Stanford University, University of North Carolina and many others.
While being the products of high quality and superior functionality they are noticeably less expensive than any of their substantial equivalents.
Does any Biocom product allow for measuring and analyzing HRV data along with a specialized treatment procedure continuously and in real-time?
HRV Live! product was designed specifically for this kind of use.
I’m a chiropractor. What Biocom product would be best for measuring changes in autonomic function associated with my treatment procedures?
If you want to have a simple inexpensive tool to measure just the autonomic balance before and after the treatment procedure, then we would recommend the Inner Balance Scan 2.0 Professional Edition.
If you want to obtain more detailed information about autonomic function derived from resting HRV data and have ability to perform more measurements than just Pre- and Post-, then we would recommend the Heart Rhythm Scanner 2.0 or Heart Rhythm Scanner Special Edition (which includes two challenge tests – deep metronomic breathing and standup tests).
If you need to measure changes in autonomic function in real-time, input event markers and later compare any segments of recorded data, then we would recommend the HRV Live!
What Biocom product can export
all measured heartbeat intervals (in milliseconds) and
in what format?
Heart Rhythm Scanner and HRV Live! can export heartbeat intervals in Excel and plain text (ASCII) formats.
I purchased Biocom product with an ActiveECG device. What kind of ECG electrodes and from what vendor would you recommend to buy?
Most of our customers use 3SG3-N pre-gelled hypoallergenic fabric snap electrodes from Multi Bio Sensors. You can find them at www.multibiosensors.com
I have Biocom Heart Rhythm Scanner 2.0 and Biocom 1500 ECG Recorder. I installed the software on my new laptop that does not have a serial port required to connect my ECG Recorder. Can I use any off-the-shelf serial-to-USB adapter?
No. Biocom 1500 uses a specialized communication protocol not supported by any off-the-shelf adapter. This device is discontinued from use and support. We recommend you to consider purchasing a new device such as Biocom 4000 as a replacement. Contact us at support@biocomtech.com for more details.
I have Biocom M-2001 pulse wave sensor device, but I cannot use it with my new computer because it does not have a serial port. What should I do?
Unfortunately this device is discontinued from use and support. We recommend you to consider purchasing a new device available at Biocom as a replacement. Contact us at support@biocomtech.com for more details.
I have Biocom 3000 ECG recorder unit. When I run a new test, I see fuzzy ECG trace on the screen. What can I do to make it clean?
There could be several reasons of having fuzzy ECG signal.
- Incorrect setting of digital notch filter. Fuzzy signal may be due to presence of power noise induced through ECG cable wires. By default the system is configured to reject 60 Hz power noise (USA, Canada, part of Japan, etc.). If your power source uses 50 Hz frequency, it will definitely cause fuzzy ECG signal. Do the following to configure the system for 50 Hz power frequency:
- Open “My Computer” (on your desktop or through Windows menu), then open “Local Disk (C:)”, then “Program Files”, then “Biocom Technologies”, then “Heart Rhythm Scanner” (or “HRV Live”) folder.
- Open DEVICE.SU2 file (it has text format) with Windows Notepad application.
- Find a line containing “frq=60.0”.
- Change it to “frq=50.0” (do not include quotes).
- Save this file and close Notepad application.
- Restart the application. The problem should be fixed.
- Poor electrical contact between ECG electrodes and skin. Before you start new test the software displays an electrode impedance test indicator. Make sure impedance level of both electrodes is in green or yellow-green zone. If it is higher, electrical contact is not good and more noise can be observed in ECG. Thoroughly prepare skin under electrodes using alcohol swab to remove excessive skin grease and dead skin cells. In some cases of dry skin using of a special conductive gel is recommended.
- ECG electrodes are worn out. Although ECG electrodes are long-lasting, after some excessive use their Ag/AgCl coating becomes worn out. We recommend replacing electrodes. Contact our technical support to request replacement. It is easy to pull old electrodes out and nap new ones in.
Can any Biocom device record external event markers?
No.
Can any Biocom product import raw ECG or pulse wave signal measured by non-Biocom device?
No.
Can Biocom products export HRV data into MatLab file format?
No, there is no direct export into MatLab format. However ASCII of Excel export can be used for that purpose.
What Biocom products are capable of exporting HRV data and client information in digital format?
Heart Rhythm Scanner and HRV Live! can export this information in Excel and plain text (ASCII) formats.
Why are your products more expensive than the HeartMath products?
This is not entirely accurate. The HeartMath products have limited use focusing on emotional improvement based on specific biofeedback technique. Their prices are within $200 - $300 range depending on specific model.
Our products have much broader scope of application ranging from similar biofeedback technique to sophisticated autonomic assessment and monitoring tools. Many of our products simply do not have similar products at HeartMath. Our products functionally similar to what HearMath has are within the same price range of less than $300.
Please tell me why your product is better than the other products out there.
Biocom products are known for years as the most superior in the market of professional assessment of the autonomic function, physiological monitoring and biofeedback.
Biocom products were designed by top notch professionals in the industry of biomedical technologies with over 25 years of professional experience.
All Biocom products are based on scientifically validated results of special research studies and acknowledged by leading professionals and academic organizations such as Baylor University, Stanford University, University of North Carolina and many others.
While being the products of high quality and superior functionality they are noticeably less expensive than any of their substantial equivalents.
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