Embedded Stethoscope for Heart Sounds

In India significant percentage of the people who die due to cardiovascular diseases belong to rural part. The major reasons are lack of awareness, lifestyle, and the cost factor. While the first two reasons are more applicable in urban India, the third is a pain point for rural areas where there are no cost-effective ways available for an early diagnosis of heart diseases. There are different tests and investigations used to diagnose heart disease. The tests doctor chooses depending upon risk of heart disease, history of heart problems and the symptoms one might have but the initial diagnosis can be done using the stethoscope used for auscultation.For many years healthcare professionals would listen quietly to patients internal organs so they could diagnose from specific sounds of these organs. But it requires lot of expertise for such diagnosis, which is not available in the rural part. The objective is to develop a Digital Stethoscope for early initial diagnosis of cardiac disorders without any high end test which the patients can be referred to, if required. The proposed design consists of a Peripheral Interface Controller (PIC) based system which consists of following stages: Front end pick-up circuitry, PIC18F4550 controller, graphic LCD display or high resolution TFT display, a memory device, USB and Bluetooth connectivity. Recorded data on memory device helps professionals to analyze later on at far distances. Bluetooth facilitates professionals to use portable devices along with its Bluetooth connectivity to capture these transmitted recordings and then analyzing these waveforms in time and frequency domain by using software such as LabVIEW.