Fractal Correlation of HRV for Postural Change in Young Males and Females

HRV time series analysis is appropriate for the effective measure of the autonomic function. The major goal of this study is to determine the fractal relationship between young people's heart rate variability and changes in their body postures. Short- and long-term fractal exponent and their ratio are incorporated in three different postural electrocardiogram signals each for twenty participants. In addition, gender-wise fractal correlation is also manifested. Participants considered for this work were adults in the age group 19-26 years and consisted of 50% female. One-way analysis of variance and the Friedman test, which succeeds the Shapiro-Wilk test, was used for statistical analysis of fractals at a 5% significance level. Short-term fractal exponent, alpha1 as well as long-term fractal exponent, alpha2 values measured are of lower value for supine and increased for sitting and standing for both grouped data and gender-wise data. The alpha1 value rises as a result of this reciprocal alteration in autonomic control of the heart rate. The increase in alpha1 and alpha2 found while sitting and standing is indicative of the gain or yield of the fractal property of HRV toward less random fluctuations. The statistical test gave a significant difference in postural HRV for alpha1 and aplha2 with p<0.0001 and p=0.0020. Similarly, the gender-wise statistical analysis also bestowed significant differences with p=0.0185 and p=0.0016. However, there wasn't a significant difference seen for alpha1/alpha2. The present work concluded that both short-term and long-term exponent increased for postural change and the difference is statistically significant.