System and method of detecting and processing physiological sounds

A method of determining blood pressure comprising:

• performing initialization procedures;
• acquiring physiologic signals;
• acquiring background signals;
• subtracting background signals from physiologic signals creating physiologic data;
• processing physiologic data forming a time domain output and a frequency domain data output;
• comparing the time domain output and the frequency domain output with a reference pattern and feature library;
• and
• determining if a disease modality is indicated.

A method of determining systemic blood pressure using sonospectrography analysis comprising:

• monitoring the frequency of a sound emitted by the aortic semilunar valve, wherein the sound is detected using a sensor assembly, to monitor physiologic signals, the sensor assembly comprising:
• a housing having a front and a back;
• an electronic module connected to the housing;
• a shock dampener connected to the front of the housing;
• a means for mounting connected to the housing;
• an acoustic coupler connected to the mounting means;
• a transducer connected to the acoustic coupler;
• and
• a cover connected to the back of the housing;
• processing the physiologic signals, the processing comprising:
• applying signal conditioning and time domain averaging to the physiologic signals to form conditioned and averaged data;
• formatting the conditioned and averaged data in an array to create formatted data;
• aligning and normalizing formatted data, to create aligned and formalized data;
• normalizing and integrating the aligned and formalized data, to create normalized and integrated data that has time domain components and frequency domain components;
• passing the time domain components of the normalized and integrated data through a time domain correlator and feature extraction process;
• passing the frequency domain components of the normalized and integrated data through a frequency domain correlator and feature extractor, to create a time domain output and a frequency domain output;
• comparing time domain output and the frequency domain output with a reference pattern and feature library;
• and
• determining if a disease modality is indicated.

A sensor assembly for detecting physiological sounds comprising:

• a housing having a front and a back;
• an electronic module connected to the housing;
• a shock dampener connected to the front of the housing;
• a means for mounting connected to the shock dampener;
• an acoustic coupler connected to the mounting means;
• a transducer connected to the acoustic coupler;
• and
• a cover connected to the back of the housing.

A sensor assembly for detecting physiological sounds comprising:

• a housing, having a front, a back, and an interior;
• an electronic module that nests in the interior of the housing;
• a first shock dampener connected to the front of the housing;
• a first mounting means connected to the first shock dampener;
• a transducer connected to the first mounting means;
• a first acoustic coupling connected to the transducer;
• a second shock dampener connected to the back of the housing;
• a second mounting means connected to the second shock dampener;
• a second transducer connected to the second mounting means;
• and
• a second acoustic coupling connected to the second transducer.

An apparatus for monitoring blood pressure comprising:

• an acoustic coupling;
• a transducer connected to the acoustic coupling;
• an electronic module connected to the transducer;
• a data acquisition module connected to the electronic module;
• and
• a data cable connected to the electronic module and the data acquisition module.

An assembly for detecting and processing physiological heart sounds, comprising:

• a sensor for sensing physiological heart sounds so as to acquire analog physiological signals;
• an amplifier configured to amplify a first frequency range of said physiological signals to a first level and configured to amplify a second frequency range of said physiological signals to a second level, said second level being higher than said first level, said first frequency range of physiological signals including frequencies that correspond to basic heart sounds, said second frequency range of said physiological signals including frequencies that correspond to sounds of interest, the sounds of interest having frequencies that are higher than frequencies of the basic heart sounds;
• and
• an analog to digital converter configured to sample said amplified physiological signals in at least said second frequency range and convert said sampled signals to digital signals.

A method of detecting and processing physiological sounds, the method comprising:

• sensing the physiological sounds to acquire analog physiological signals, the sensed physiological sounds including basic heart sounds and sounds of interest;
• amplifying a first frequency range of the physiological signals to a first level;
• amplifying a second frequency range of the physiological signals to a second level that is higher than the first level, the second frequency range including frequencies that are higher than frequencies in the first frequency range, the second frequency range including frequencies of the sounds of interest;
• sampling the amplified physiological signals in at least the second range;
• and
• converting the sampled signals to digital signals.