Wireless PC-based phonocardiograph and diagnosis

Abstract

Auscultation is used to evaluate heart health and can indicate when it's needed to refer a patient to a cardiologist. Advanced PCG signal processing algorithms are developed to assist the physician in the initial diagnosis but they are primarily designed and demonstrated with research quality equipment. Therefore there is a need to demonstrate the applicability of those techniques with consumer grade instrument. Furthermore, routine monitoring would benefit from a wireless PCG sensor that allows continuous monitoring of cardiac signals of patients in physical activity, e.g., treadmill or weight exercise. In this work, a low-cost portable and wireless healthcare monitoring system based on phonocardiograph signal is implemented to validate and evaluate the most advanced algorithms. Off-the-shelf electronics and a notebook PC are used with MATLAB codes to record and analyze PCG signals which are collected with a notebook computer in tethered and wireless mode. High valued diagnostics based on the S1 and S2 signals and MATLAB codes are demonstrated. While the prototype is based on MATLAB, the later is not an absolute requirement.