Abstract: A method of enhancing the image quality of cardiologic and general untrasound echo-doppler apparatus by finite memory, ECG-gated and/or breathing gated filtering of the acquired image. The acquired scans are time-gated by the cardiac contraction cycle, or by the breathing cycle to account for cardiac deformation due to contraction or relaxation, and to cardiac movements due to lung inflation or deflation, or to cardiac-induced pulse of perfusion in non-cardiac organs and tissues. The gated scans are recursively filtered with saved images, which are processed scans of previous cardiac and/or breathing cycles. The resulting images are displayed and also saved for the next cycle filtering process.

Abstract: A method of assessing the cardiovascular performance of a subject, by: applying periodically, in synchronism with every n.sup.th heart cardiac cycle wherein "n" is at least two, external pressure pulsations on a peripheral organ of the subject sufficient to alter ventricular loading; acquiring data representative of the ventricular pressure, and data representative of the ventricular volume, of the subject's heart over a plurality of heart cardiac cycles; and utilizing such data for assessing the cardiovascular performance of the subject. Ventricular loading may be altered by impeding ventricular ejection (changing afterload), and/or by altering venous return to the heart (changing preload).