An algorithm for decomposition of heart sounds based on S-method

Clinical experience has shown that heart sounds can be an effective tool to noninvasively diagnose some forms of heart disease. In this paper, an algorithm based on time-frequency analysis is used for the decomposition of the heart sounds. The decomposition algorithm is based on the S-method. The S-method is a time-frequency representation that can produce a distribution equal or close to the sum of the Wigner distributions of individual signal components. The decomposition algorithm is used for segmentation of the heart sound recordings that contain either of the two sounds: opening snap or third heart sound, which indicate distinct heart diseases. The results show that the algorithm effectively decomposes each heart beat into the corresponding components. Hence, they may be used in conjunction with a classification algorithm, allowing automatic decomposition and classification of the heart diseases associated with the opening snap and the third heart sound.