Auscultation based stethoscopic diagnostic device for cardiac murmur identification

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.