Chest wall oscillation system with digital auscultation

A method of operation of a chest wall oscillation system, comprising:

• oscillating, with a chest wall oscillator mounted on a wearable garment, a chest of a user in a therapy session;
• detecting sound at a sound detector mounted on the wearable garment;
• characterizing the detected sound at one or more processors of the chest wall oscillation system as one or more adventitious lung sounds;
• determining, based on the one or more adventitious lung sounds, an efficacy of the therapy session;
• and
• controlling, based on the determining, one or more of:
• a frequency of the chest wall oscillator, an intensity of the chest wall oscillator, and a duration of the therapy session;
• wherein the characterizing comprises quantifying one or more of a number of crackles per breath cycle (nBC), a 2-cycle deflection width (2CD), a duration of crackles, a number of regions with crackles, or an intensity of crackles;
• and
• wherein the controlling includes increasing one or more of the frequency, intensity, or duration from an initial frequency, intensity, and/or duration, respectively, if one or more of the quantified nBC number, 2CD width, duration of crackles, number of regions with crackles, or intensity of crackles is greater than a predetermined threshold;
• wherein the predetermined threshold is one or more of a degree of change, a rate of change, a direction of change, and a speed of change in response to therapy.

A wearable device configured to oscillate a chest of a user, comprising:

• chest wall oscillation means of a wearable garment for oscillating the chest of the user in a therapy session;
• sound detection means of the wearable garment for detecting sound from the chest of the user and outputting signals corresponding to the detected sound;
• control means for receiving the output signals from the sound detection means, the control means comprising a processing means for characterizing the output signals of the sound detection means as one or more adventitious lung sounds, determining based on the one or more adventitious lung sounds an efficacy of the therapy session, and generating control output signals based upon determination of the efficacy, the control output signals of the processing means being communicated to the chest wall oscillation means to control one or more of a frequency of oscillations, an intensity of oscillations, and a duration of the therapy session;
• wherein the control means comprises one or more processors configured to characterize the output signals of the sound detector as one or more adventitious lung sounds using computer aided lung sound analysis (CALSA);
• wherein the one or more processors are configured to quantify one or more of a number of crackles per breath cycle (nBC), a 2-cycle deflection width (2CD), a duration of crackles, a number of regions with crackles, or an intensity of crackles;
• and
• wherein the control means is further configured to increase one or more of the controlled frequency, intensity, or duration from an initial frequency, intensity, and/or duration, respectively, if one or more of the quantified nBC number, 2CD width, duration of crackles, number of regions with crackles, or intensity of crackles is greater than a predetermined threshold;
• wherein the predetermined threshold is one or more of a degree of change, a rate of change, a direction of change, and a speed of change in response to therapy.