Development of digital stethoscope for telemedicine

Abstract

The stethoscope is a medical acoustic device which is used to auscultate internal body sounds, mainly the heart and lungs. A digital stethoscope overcomes the limitations of a conventional stethoscope as the sound data is transformed into electrical signals which can be amplified, stored, replayed and, more importantly, sent for an expert opinion, making it very useful in telemedicine. With the above in view, a low cost digital stethoscope has been developed which is interfaceble with mobile communication devices. In this instrument sounds from various locations can be captured with the help of an electret condenser microphone. Captured sound is filtered, amplified and processed digitally using an adaptive line enhancement technique to obtain audible and distinct heart sounds.

Keywords:

• Auscultation
• adaptive line enhancement (ALE) technique
• band pass filter (BPF)
• bluetooth
• condenser microphone
• digital filter
• heart sound amplifier
• telemedicine

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr S. K. Narayankhedkar, Principal and Dr G. D. Jindal, Professor and Head of Department, Biomedical Engineering, MGM College of Engineering and Technology (MGMCET) Navi Mumbai for their valuable ideas and constant guidance throughout the development. The authors are thankful to Head, Electronics Division, Bhabha Atomic Research center, Mumbai (BARC) to allow us to carry out this work.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.