Development of an application to configure the smartphone as a stethoscope in health professionals with auditive deficiencies

  • Luis Ángel Vallejo Valdezate
  • Eduardo Santamaria-Vazquez
    Investigador Contratado, Grupo de Ingeniería Biomédica, E.T.S. Ingenieros de Telecomunicación, Universidad de Valladolid
  • Roberto Hornero
    Catedrático de Universidad, Grupo de Ingeniería Biomédica, E.T.S. Ingenieros de Telecomunicación, Universidad de Valladolid
  • Elisa Gil-Carcedo
    Prof. Asoc. ORL. UVa. Servicio de Otorrinolaringología. Hospital Universitario Río Hortega. Valladolid. España.
  • David Herrero-Calvo
    Prof. Asoc. ORL. UVa. Servicio de Otorrinolaringología. Hospital Universitario Río Hortega. Valladolid. España.

Abstract

Introduction and objectives. The hearing loss supposes a severe handicap for any professional whose activity is based on the recognition of sounds. In the case of health professionals, auscultation is a routine activity and the condition of hearing loss limits it to a variable degree depending on the severity of the same. Those health professionals who, due to the severity of their hearing loss, need the use of hearing aids, find routines based on the use of the stethoscope difficult. The objective of this work is to describe the process to develop a smartphone application that allows real-time reproduction, recording and analysis of sounds to facilitate the work of health professionals with hearing loss. Methods. We have collected cardiac, pulmonary and abdominal somatosounds from healthy and pathological subjects in order to characterize them spectrographically. Then, the application has been designed in order to facilitate the diagnostic work of the hypoacoustic healthcare professional, considering the previous characterization to optimize listening and analysis of cardiac, pulmonary and abdominal sounds. Moreover, in order to maximize the number of compatible devices, it has been developed for the Android operating system, the most widespread in the market. Results. An App for Android-based smartphones has been developed (called STETHOSCOPE) that configures the phone as a stethoscope, picking up the somatosounds through its microphone (being possible to use only the internal microphone of the Smartphone as external microphones of high quality to through its JACK connector), processing the signal until finally sending it via Bluetooth to the hearing aid of the hearing impaired professional. This application allows you to record and graphically represent heart sounds, lungs and abdominals in Android devices and store them in WAV format without compression with a 32-bit FLOAT IEEE coding, allowing your file, comparison or sharing with other professionals. Conclusion. In this study, we present a novel application designed to use the smartphone as a stethoscope, sending the captured sound to the hearing aid (wirelessly) of the physician with hearing loss.
  • Referencias
  • Cómo citar
  • Del mismo autor
  • Métricas
1. Roguin A. Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laënnec. The man behind the stethoscope. Clin Med Res. 2006; 4:230–5.
2. Durand LG; Pibarot P. Digital signal processing of the phonocardiograms: Review of the most recent advancements. Crit. Rev. Biomed. Eng. 1995; 23:163-219.
3. Leng S, Tan RS, Chai KT, Wang C, Ghista D, Zhong L. The electronic stethoscope. Biomed Eng Online. 2015; 14:66.
4. Bredesen MS, Schmerler ED. Intelligent stethoscope. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America; 1993; 94, 3043.
5. Brusco M; Nazeran H. Development of an intelligent PDA-based wearable digital phonocardiograph Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology. Shangai. China 2005.
6. Tavel ME; Brown DD; Shander D. Enhanced auscultation with a new graphic display system. Arch Intern Med 1994, 25;154 (8):893-8.
7. Ekoscope: http://www.ekoscope.com/. Acceso 7/07/2019.
8. ViScope: http://hdmedicalgroup.com/our-products/ viscope/. Acceso 7/07/2019
9. Thorpe PM. The deaf doctor S Afr Med J 1978, 19: 326-8
10. Salisu AD; Bakari A; Abdullahi H. Impact of operator hearing threshold on manual blood pressure measurement. Ann Afr. Med. 2017:16: 1-5.
11. Jacob RT, Zambonato TC, Mondelli MF. Stethoscopes with hearing aid use: Case studies. Int Arch Otorhinolaryngol. 2013;17(1):96–100.
12. MATLAB (R2018a). Natick, Massachusetts: The MathWorks Inc.; 2018.
13. International Data Corporation (2017). IDC quarterly mobile phone tracker. Technical Report.
14. Google Inc. Android [Internet]. Accessed 07-04-2020. Disponible en: https://www.android.com/.
15. AlHeyasat O, Abu-Ei AAK, Sharadqeh AA. Time comparing between Java and C++ software. 2012.
16. Lai LS; Redington AN; Reinich AJ, Unterberger MJ and Schriefl AJ. Computerized automatic diagnosis of innocent and pathologic murmurs in pediatrics: A pilot Study. 2016; 11:386-95.
17. Vaidyanathan B; Stathish G; Mohanan ST; Sundaram KR; Warrier KK; Kumar RK. Clinical screening for congenital heart disease at birth: a prospective study in a community hospital in Kerala. Indian Pediatric 2011; 48: 25-30.
18. Zülkhe L; Ayer L; Mayosi BM. The promise of computer assisted auscultation in screening for structural heart disease ad clinical teaching. Cardiovasc. J. Afr. 2012; 23: 405-8.
19. Mandal S; Basak K; Mandana KM; Chatterjee J; Mahadevappa M. Development cardiac prescreening device for rural population using ultraslow-power embedded system. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. 2011;58:745-9.
20. Iwamoto J; Ogawa H; Maki H; Yonezawa Y; Hahn AW and Caldwell WM. A mobile phone-based ecg and heart sound monitoring system - boomed 2011. Biomed Sci Instrum 2011;47:160-4.
21. Koekemoer HL; Scheffer C. Heart sound and electrocardiogram recording devices for telemedicine environments. Conf. Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2008; 2008: 4867-70.
22. Ohshimo S, Sadamori T, Tanigawa K. Innovation in analysis of respiratory sounds. Ann Intern Med. 2016; 164:638–9.
23. Yoganathan AP, Gupta R, Udwadia FE, et al. Use of the fast Fourier transform for frequency analysis of the first heart sound in normal man. Med Biol Eng. 1976;14(1):69–73.
Vallejo Valdezate, L. Ángel, Santamaria-Vazquez, E., Hornero, R., Gil-Carcedo, E., & Herrero-Calvo, D. (2020). Development of an application to configure the smartphone as a stethoscope in health professionals with auditive deficiencies. Revista ORL, 11(4), 401–411. https://doi.org/10.14201/orl.22751

Most read articles by the same author(s)

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Luis Ángel Vallejo Valdezate

,
Universidad de Valladolid, España
Profesor Titular de Otorrinolaringología. Universidad de ValladolidJefe de Servicio de Otorrinolaringología. Hospital Universitario "del Rio Hortega". Valladolid
+