Detection of pathological heart murmurs by feature extraction of phonocardiogram signals

Abstract

Cardiac auscultation can be perceived as method of determining the human heart condition by listening to the heart sounds. These heart sounds contain vital information related to a person’s heart condition. Any departure from the normal cardiac auscultation readings in terms of presence of additional heart sounds is indicative of an unhealthy heart. The use of Phonocardiogram (PCG)signals (i.e. the electronic recording of heart sounds) completely dismisses the limitation of relying solely on the physician’s hearing ability. At the same time, they provide with a high-fidelity representation of the heart sounds in the most cost-effective way as compared to the methods like Electrocardiogram (ECG). In this paper, a method of detection of heart ailments by extracting the features of PCG signals is proposed. The normal heart sounds, gallop rhythms and the most common pathological murmurs have been used for analysis. By analyzing these signals, early detection and diagnosis of heart diseases can be done reliably. This will not only confirm health and longevity by early diagnosis and pin-pointed prognosis, but will also be economically suitable for those who can hardly afford tests like ECG. It can also be practicable in the case of infants wherein the other non-invasive diagnosis techniques like ECG fail.