METHOD, DEVICE AND SYSTEM FOR CARDIO-ACOUSTIC SIGNAL ANALYSIS

• US 20080260173A1
• Filed: 04/14/2008
• Published: 10/23/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/14/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Medicalgorithmics Ltd. (Medicalgorithmics S.A.)
• Original Assignee: Medicalgorithmics Ltd. (Medicalgorithmics S.A.)
• Inventors: Dziubinski, Marek
• Granted Patent: US 7,753,856 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 381/67
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/363 Detecting tachycardia or bradycardia
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7203 for noise prevention, reduction or removal
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7264 Classification of physiological signals or data, e.g. using neural networks, statistical classifiers, expert systems or fuzzy systems neural networks per se G06N3/00; expert systems per se G06N5/00
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/20 for computer-aided diagnosis, e.g. based on medical expert systems

Abstract

A method for cardio-acoustic signal analysis includes receiving a signal representative of heart sounds and displaying the signal in a time-perceptual frequency-perceptual loudness domain representation. The received signal is transformed to represent a time-perceptual frequency-amplitude domain. The method further includes applying a human auditory modeling algorithm to the time-perceptual frequency-amplitude domain representation to generate the time-perceptual frequency-perceptual loudness domain representation.

Claims

1. A method for cardio-acoustic signal analysis, comprising:

receiving a signal representative of heart sounds; and

displaying the signal in a time-perceptual frequency-perceptual loudness domain representation.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising transforming the received signal to represent a time-perceptual frequency-amplitude domain.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising applying a human auditory system modeling algorithm to the time-perceptual frequency-amplitude domain representation to generate a time-perceptual frequency-perceptual loudness domain representation.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the transformation is based on inner products calculations using at least complex numbered impulse response filter banks representing a non-linear frequency resolution character.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the complex numbered impulse response represents properties of perceptual frequency characteristics.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein perceptual frequency characteristics include at least Bark units and mel scale.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein the complex numbered impulse response allows for calculating phase (and amplitude) prediction of the representation components.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising calculating tonality using an unpredictability measure parameter.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising distinguishing between noisy and tonal components in the signal.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising simulating periodicity perception.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising interpreting the time-perceptual frequency-perceptual loudness domain representation.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein interpreting the time-perceptual frequency-perceptual loudness domain representation includes comparing the time-perceptual frequency-perceptual loudness domain representation to a perceived acoustical phenomena.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the signal is representative of at least cardiac auscultation and pulmonary auscultation.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising applying periodicity analysis methods to the time-perceptual frequency-perceptual loudness domain representation.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising detecting S1 and S2 of at least 2 cardiac cycles for calculating an averaged representation.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising limiting influence of noise and other non-repetitive parasite artifacts and disturbances to the signal.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising restoring the cardiac auscultation signal.

18. A system for cardio-acoustic signal analysis, comprising:

an input sensor for receiving a signal representative of heart sounds; and

a display device for displaying the signal in a time-perceptual frequency-perceptual loudness domain representation.

19. The system of claim 18, further comprising a transformation module for transforming the received signal to represent a time-perceptual frequency-amplitude domain.

20. A method for cardio-acoustic signal analysis, comprising:

means for receiving a signal representative of heart sounds; and

means for displaying the signal in a time-perceptual frequency-perceptual loudness domain representation.