Abstract:
In a healthy heart, there is no any abnormal blood
flow takes place inside, in addition to the usual blood circulating
pattern. However when the valves or tissues inside the heart are
in diseased conditions, this usual blood flow pattern gets changed.
As a result, abnormal sounds are produced with the normal heart
beat sound. These abnormal sounds are known as cardiac
murmurs. By identifying the murmur type doctors can diagnose
the cardiac pathology related to that particular murmur type.
This paper describes an electronic stethoscopic device that can be
used as a stethoscope as well as murmur identification
equipment. Chest piece of an ordinary stethoscope has been used
to capture the heart beat with a microphone attached to it. Then
the captured signal is amplified and sampled in the device itself
and the sampled data is then transmitted to the central location
to carry out the signal processing. Since there is a processor
inside the device, processing of data can also be done in the
device if required. Also the device has the capability of storing
the sampled data for future analysis.
