Heart detective

• US 3,985,121 A
• Filed: 05/20/1975
• Issued: 10/12/1976
• Est. Priority Date: 05/20/1975
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: ITT Corporation (ITT, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: International Telephone & Telegraph Corp. (ITT, Inc.)
• Inventors: Hellenbrand, Samuel H.
• Primary Examiner(s): Grieb, William H.
• Application Number:
  US05/579,103
• Time in Patent Office: 511 Days
• Field of Search: 128/2 K, 128/2 R, 128/2.05 S, 128/2.06 A, 35/17, 324/77
• US Class Current: 600/502
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/024 Detecting, measuring or recording pulse rate or heart rate A61B5/0205, A61B5/021 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 7/04 Electric stethoscopes microphones, acoustic transducers therefor H04R

Abstract

The heart detective described is a portable device for detecting and indicating when heart sounds emanating directly from a physical area under auscultation are representative of a heart disorder. The device detects the audio sounds emanating from the classical four physical areas of auscultation and compares these detected sounds to prerecorded sounds of the same areas representing a known heart disorder. A comparison is made between the detected sounds and the prerecorded sounds, and the correlations are indicated in a display on the device so that a determination may be made if the heart disorder is present. The device also contains means for accepting an auxiliary transducer for detecting heartbeat pulses and indicating the pulse rate.

Claims

1. A heart detective comprising in combination:

means for simultaneously detecting a plurality of heart sounds, said detecting means includes a plurality of directive microphones and audio channels, each of said microphones coupling one of said plurality of detected heart sounds to an associated audio channel;

means providing a plurality of prerecorded heart sounds, said prerecorded heart sounds are stored on a multitrack magnetic tape in a predetermined synchronism;

means for comparing said detected heart sounds and said prerecorded heart sounds to produce a correlation indication, said comparing means includes a correlation detector providing an amplitude and frequency correlation indication between one of said detected heart sounds and one of said prerecorded heart sounds;

means responsive to the predetermined synchronism to sequentially control the comparison of one of said plurality of detected heart sounds to a corresponding one of said prerecorded heart sounds; and

means coupled to said comparing means for displaying said correlation indication for each of said plurality of heart sounds.

2. The combination of claim 1 including pulse beat detecting means and means coupled to said detecting means for displaying a pulse rate.

3. The combination of claim 1 wherein said display means includes a decoder and a numerical display location for each of said plurality of detected heart sounds.

4. The combination of claim 1 wherein each said audio channel includes

a preamplifier,

a predetermined bandpass filter,

an amplifier and gain control means, and

acoustic delay means for temporarily storing and coupling the associated one of said detected heart sounds to said comparator.

5. The combination of claim 1 wherein said means providing includes at least one reading head for selectably coupling said plurality of prerecorded heart sounds to said comparator.

6. A method of examination for detecting when heart sounds emanating from particular areas are indicative of a heart disease, the method comprising:

inserting a tape recording containing a plurality of recorded audio sounds corresponding to a known disease into a portable device;

placing said device on the physical area under auscultation and simultaneously receiving a plurality of detected audio sounds;

comparing said plurality of detected audio sounds with said recorded sounds; and

displaying on said device a correlation indication between said recorded and detected sounds, whereby a predetermined number of correlations indicate said known disease.

7. The method of claim 6 including attaching a transducer to said portable device for recording pulse beats from a particular physical area, and displaying a pulse rate on the same display used for said correlation indication.

8. A portable heart detective device comprising in combination:

four directive microphones arranged on one face of said device to correspond to the classical four physical areas of auscultation;

four audio channels coupled in one-to-one correspondence to said microphones and responsive to detect audio signals emanating from the four areas, said channels including means for temporarily storing the detected audio signals;

said device including means for receiving a prerecorded tape and producing therefrom four audio signals corresponding to the four areas for a particular condition;

a signal comparator for comparing the four detected audio signals to the corresponding four prerecorded signals for said particular condition; and

means for indicating on said device a correlation between a detected signal and a corresponding prerecorded signal for each of said four areas.