A method is provided for identifying a disease of a patient. The method includes collecting data of at least one cardio-respiratory function of the patient over time, eliminating artifacts from the collected data to create a new data record, constructing a phase-space from the new data record, and constructing a hypercube covering the phase-space. The method further includes calculating threshold criteria for quantifying dispersion characteristics of an attractor of the phase-space and determining the patient's tendency towards the disease based on the threshold criteria.