ENHANCEMENT OF CARDIAC AND RESPIRATORY SOUNDS FOR CELLPHONE REPRODUCTION BY MEANS OF DIGITAL SOUND PROCESSING METHODS
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Echenique, Maria Belen
Godoy, Eduardo J.
Cádiz, Rodrigo F.
Andia, Marcelo E.
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Abstract
Telemedicine has become increasingly popular due to its convenience and accessibility. However, one of its drawbacks is the difficulty of performing lung and heart auscultation remotely. As a solution, we propose smartphonebased tele-auscultation for capturing lung and heart sounds. However, one of the obstacles to this approach is that lowfrequency sounds, such as heart sounds, cannot be accurately reproduced by a smartphone speaker, due to their frequency response. To address this issue, we suggest using pitch-shifted versions of these sounds, specifically designed for hearing through smartphones. We conducted an initial evaluation of these processed sounds by obtaining 10 heart sounds and 20 lung sounds from open-source databases, which were pitch-shifted using algorithms based on Paul’s Stretch and SoundStretch libraries, respectively. These processed audios were validated by 40 final-year medical students using a web survey and conventional headphones and were compared against the original versions. The results showed that 72% and 80% of responses indicated that clinical information was preserved in the samples of respiratory and heart sounds, respectively. These findings suggest that pitch-shifted sounds could be potentially used in tele-auscultation devices such as smartphones. However, further research is needed regarding the recording and playback capabilities of smartphones.
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2023-06
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Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License.