Biotechnical System for Recording Phonocardiography

Abstract

The Phonocardiography is a graphical method of recording of the tones and noise generated by the heart with the help of the phonocardiogram machine. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) and heart failure (HF) are considered life-threatening and mostly cause death. The phonocardiograph signal (PCG) considers an indicator of abnormalities in the cardiovascular system. It provides the ability to carry out qualitative information and quantitative analysis of different tones and heart murmurs. PCG plays a major role in treatment, diagnosis and decision making of the clinical examination and biomedical research fields. The use of simple stethoscope for diagnosis the heart problem requires an experienced physician or doctors. Many people with CVD and HF are dying every day because of the lack of facilities that analysis the heart defects. Most of the low come countries suffer from a severe shortage in the Electrocardiogram (ECG) and PCG devices and trained physicians and doctors. The Poor healthcare system in these countries needs to be improved especially the problem of heart disease diagnostics. The PCG is a technique for recording and monitoring the cardiac acoustics by using a transducer and microphone. This paper attempts to design a cheap and simple biotechnical system for recording and monitoring PCG signal. The hardware was designed and implemented using the stethoscope, electret microphone, amplifiers, DC source, and jack for transmitting the PCG signal to the computer. The software was codded for monitoring and processing the PCG signal.