Real-time regional respiratory sound diagnosis instrument

Pulmonary sounds and their frequency spectra contain valuable information about the health condition of the patient. In this study, a mult!-channel lung sound acquisition and real-time diagnosis system based on digital signal processor hardware has been constructed. With this system, lung sounds from four designated localizations on the chest of the patient can be recorded and analyzed. Lung sounds are recorded using air coupled electret microphones and airflow information is recorded with a flow-meter. A user interface on the PC platform is developed for a user-friendly system and for permanent storage of the recorded data. The diagnosis is achieved by comparing frequency parameters between healthy and pathological subjects.