In:
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Acoustical Society of America (ASA), Vol. 140, No. 4_Supplement ( 2016-10-01), p. 3372-3372
Kurzfassung:
The electronic stethoscopes implement selectable low- and high-pass digital filters in order to mimic the declared acoustic characteristics of the bell and diaphragm chest pieces of the acoustic stethoscopes. However, the question arises if such a simple approach can exactly reproduce the actual, complex spectral characteristics of the acoustic stethoscopes, which are strongly affected by the acoustic coupling between the body of a patient and the chest piece? The present study introduces the results of the relevant experimental investigations. The acoustic characteristics of four different electronic stethoscopes operating in bell and diaphragm modes were determined during the heart auscultation examinations combined with the synchronized ECG recordings. The heart sounds were recorded using a microphone placed in one of the earpieces, while the ECG signals were used to extract interference-free fragments corresponding to single heartbeats. The averaged spectra of a large numbers of such fragments were used to determine the acoustic parameters of the investigated devices. The obtained results are compared to the corresponding results obtained for the acoustic stethoscopes, showing significant discrepancies. The potential diagnostic consequences of such discrepancies are discussed based on the available auscultation guidelines for physicians, which do not take into account the described effects.
Materialart:
Online-Ressource
ISSN:
0001-4966
,
1520-8524
Sprache:
Englisch
Verlag:
Acoustical Society of America (ASA)
Publikationsdatum:
2016
ZDB Id:
1461063-2
