Time-frequency analysis of pediatric murmurs

Technology has provided many new tools to assist in the diagnosis of pathologic conditions of the heart. Echocardiography, Ultrafast CT (Cine-CT), and MRI are just a few. While these tools are a valuable resource, they are typically too expensive, large and complex in operation for use in rural, homecare, and physician's office settings. Recent advances in computer performance, miniaturization, and acoustic signal processing, have yielded new technologies that when applied to heart sounds can provide low cost screening for pathologic conditions. The short duration and transient nature of these signals requires processing techniques that provide high resolution in both time and frequency. Short-time Fourier transforms, Wigner distributions, and Wavelet transforms have been applied to signals from hearts with various pathologic conditions. While no single technique provides the ideal solution, the combination of tools provides a good representation of the acoustic features of the pathologies selected.