A real time cough monitor for classification of various pulmonary diseases

Cough is the most troublesome symptoms and event of illness. There are varied causes of cough such as respiratory tract infections to unrelieved conditions such as asthma, bronchitis etc. The frequency of cough is important for both accurate diagnosis and for monitoring the success of the treatment. The goal of this work is to put into use of a non-invasive and unobtrusive device that will accurately record the frequency of cough. Electromyography (EMG) is used to obtain the cough signals from the patients. The signals are recorded in real time using LabVIEW software. We have taken two commonly existing and closely related pulmonary diseases namely Asthma and Bronchitis for our work. These diseases are differentiated based on the frequency of cough and the cough pattern. The availability of a reliable and accurate method to record the extent and severity of cough thereby improves the respiratory care and management of these patients. The advantage of cough monitor is early screening of pulmonary diseases and thus proper diagnosis and treatment for patients are possible.