Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most prevalent type of cardiac arrhythmia. As such, its early detection at a massive population scale is of paramount importance not only to avoid serious risks to people's health but also to ensure the sustainability of health care systems worldwide. Ambulatory monitoring can help mitigate these problems, and wearable devices can play a fundamental role in this regard. These devices can be equipped with sensors to measure cardiac activity, for instance from photoplethysmography (PPG) signals. The use of these sensors in wearable devices for AF screening faces several technological challenges. One of them is their sensitivity to interferences, in particular caused by patient's physical activity, which may be indistinguishable from cardiac activity. This paper presents a method to identify the periods of time during which PPG signals can be used because these effects are not present in them. Experimental results obtained from real patients show that by using the proposed method, a significant amount of valid data can be obtained, improving the usability of wearable devices for affordable AF ambulatory screening.
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