BOOK REVIEWHeart rate variability by M. Malik and A. J. Camm (Eds.), Futura, 1995, IBSN 0-87993-607-X, 543pp. $98 Encompassing all aspects of heart rate variability from the point of view of cardiovascular medicine, this book is subdivided into four main sections. The first contains two introductory chapters on background material and the very first chapter of the pair, by Roger Hainsworth, gives an excellent introduction to physiology and clinical implications. The section on measurement is likely to be of greatest interest to readers of Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing, and deals with measurement topics from time domain to spectral techniques, the effects of noise and the relationship between different measurements. The third section then links physiological responses to some of the heart variability measurements, but as all who work in this area know, there is as yet no model which can take account of these responses. The final section on clinical implications is probably the least successful as there is much overlap and many of the chapters contain long descriptions of published papers. Two of the chapters here deal with noncardiovascular disease - diabetes and foetal medicine. It is a pity that research in different clinical fields does not have a greater overlap. As would be expected from the editors, much effort has gone onto ensuring consistency of terminology, which has been a real problem in this area. However, even under their watchful eye variants do appear. There were five variants of one abbreviation, caused no doubt because researchers can too easily lose track of the original meaning of the words. How else would 'r-MS' come to represent 'root mean square'? There are over 60 contributors to this book, and to those involved in the field it will probably come as no surprise to learn that over a third of the contributors were from Italy, where there has been a strong interest in this topic. Researchers already working in this area will find this a useful book to dip into, and new research workers will gain an initial introduction to the field. ALAN MURRAY | ||