Title :
The chest is a significant collector of ambient noise in heart sound recordings
Author :
Schmidt, S.E. ; Zimmermann, Horst ; Hansen, Jonas ; Moller, Henry ; Hammershoi, D. ; Struijk, Johannes J.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Health Sci. & Technol., Aalborg Univ., Aalborg, Denmark
Abstract :
Weak murmurs related to coronary artery disease might be masked in ambient noise when heart sounds are recorded in clinical settings. The aim of the current study was to characterize the influx of ambient noise through the chest and through the microphone´s coupler house. To estimate the transmission through the coupler house the coupler was placed in contact with a heavy block of steel in an anechoic chamber while 100 dB(A) SPL pink noise was played as ambient noise. The transmission through the chest pathway was measured for three males and two females. 45 seconds of heart sounds were recorded in silence in the anechoic chamber and under the presence of 100 dB pink noise. The spectrum of the noise entering the recordings was estimated by subtracting the spectrum of the heart sounds recorded in silence from the spectrum of the heart sounds recorded during 100 dB noise. In the frequency band of interest (200-1000 Hz) the noise was attenuated 53.5 dB by the coupler house. The chest pathway amplified the noise by 6.6 dB (Std.0.9). In conclusion the ambient noise is conducted via the chest path to the microphone with a slight amplification.
Keywords :
blood vessels; cardiovascular system; diseases; medical signal detection; microphones; SPL pink noise; ambient noise; anechoic chamber; chest; coronary artery disease; coupler house; frequency 200 Hz to 1000 Hz; heart sound recordings; microphone; weak murmurs; Arteries; Couplers; Heart; Microphones; Noise; Noise measurement; Transfer functions;
Conference_Titel :
Computing in Cardiology (CinC), 2012
Conference_Location :
Krakow
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4673-2076-4