Systems and methods for tuning, analysis and display of heart sounds

Abstract

A tunable auscultation system includes a heart sound acquirer for sensing heart sounds from at least one chest location of the patient. An initial conditioner then conditions the heart sounds through pre-amplification and anti-aliasing. The heart sounds are transduced into electrical signals by a signal processor. The electric heart signals are then tuned by an analysis tool. The analysis tool includes an interaction tuner, a processing tuner and an output tuner. The interaction tuner includes a preset tuning selector and a dynamic range tuning selector. The processing tuner includes a band pass filter and an algorithmic extraction engine which applies extraction algorithms to the electric heart signals, segments them and extracts signals of interest. Signals of interest may be correlated to specific pathologies. The output tuner includes a signal strength indicator, a diagnosis indicator, an overlapping cardiac cycle display and a display configuration engine. A display module provides output.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This is a continuation-in-part of co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 11 / 740,906 filed on Apr. 26, 2007, entitled “Systems and Methods for Analysis and Display of Heart Sounds”, which is hereby fully incorporated by reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]This invention relates generally to medical electronic devices for analysis of auscultatory cardiac sounds. More particularly, this invention relates to a method for transducing, intelligently filtering, recording, analyzing and audiovisual representation of heart sounds at the point of care, in humans, to enable differential diagnosis.[0003]Auscultatory sounds have long been one of the primary inputs to aid in the detection of various physiological conditions. For instance the stethoscope is the first tool used by a clinician to monitor heart sounds to detect and diagnose the condition of a subject's heart. Auscultation itself is extremely limited by a number of factors. It is extre...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0009]To achieve the foregoing and in accordance with the present invention, a method and system of tuning, analyzing and displaying heart sounds is provided. Such an auscultation system is useful for a clinician to efficiently and cost-effectively auscultate patients.

[0012]The analysis tool is able to filter the frequencies of the heart sounds. The analysis tool is able to take in user input, perform intelligent tuning, and provide appropriate user feedback.

Problems solved by technology

Auscultation itself is extremely limited by a number of factors.

This is made more difficult when conditions such as ectopic beats, atrial fibrillation, atrial flutter, tachycardia and various other rhythmic disorders occur.

However, the above described PC based platforms suffer from the following shortcomings and bottlenecks.

In addition, there is a critical time delay between the time the clinician auscultates the subject and the time the clinician applies the PC based analysis to the recorded heart sounds.

There are also portability issues associated with the PC based system setup.

For example, some handheld devices are designed such that the chest piece is housed in the device itself thereby rendering sterilization processes difficult, or at least call for involved and expensive methods of cleaning.

Further, the mere display of the heart sounds or ECG signals, in addition to the audio of the heart sounds is insufficient for the user to ascertain the condition of the heart.

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