Breathing and heart sounds provide critical diagnostic information for several heart conditions such as natural or prosthetic valve dysfunction and heart failure. Hospitals have for the most part conventional stethoscopes for listening to the heartbeat of patients. However these diagnoses are not deep enough. Electronic stethoscopes, also known as phonocardiographs, have the potential to overcome the limitations of the conventional stethoscopes. Although electronic stethoscope exists on the market, it is not within the reach of all small health facilities and hospitals in the Sub-Saharan African region. That is why this project opts for the design and implementation of a system consisting of an electronic stethoscope and a computer-assisted auscultation software. The system uses optimized filters to obtain a high SNR signal. Also signal processing algorithms were developed to extract physiological parameters such as heart rate, heart rate, systolic and diastolic times. Finally, the realization of the system and operational tests were made. The results showed that a 27dB amplification was obtained which is in line with expectations.
Medical tags
- Clinical need
- Monitoring purpose
- Area
- Emergency medicine
- Technology
- Monitoring device
- Project keywords
- phonocardiogram, stethoscope, heart, auscultation
- Device classification
- I