Performance analysis of seismocardiography for heart sound signal recording in noisy scenarios.

This paper presents a system based on Seismocardiography (SCG) to monitor the heart sound signal for the long-term. It uses an accelerometer, which is of small size and low weight and, thus, convenient to wear. Such a system should also be robust to various noises which occur in real life scenarios. Therefore, a detailed analysis is provided of the proposed system and its performance is compared to the performance of the Phoncardiography (PCG) system. For this purpose, both signals of five subjects were simultaneously recorded in clinical and different real life noisy scenarios. For the quantitative analysis, the detection rate of fundamental heart sound components, S1 and S2, is obtained. Furthermore, a quality index based on the energy of fundamental components is also proposed and obtained for the same. Results show that both the techniques are able to acquire the S1 and S2, in clinical set-up. However, in real life scenarios, we observed many favourable features in the proposed system as compared to PCG, for its use for long-term monitoring.

Design methodology of a new wavelet basis function for fetal phonocardiographic signals.

Fetal phonocardiography (fPCG) based antenatal care system is economical and has a potential to use for long-term monitoring due to noninvasive nature of the system. The main limitation of this technique is that noise gets superimposed on the useful signal during its acquisition and transmission. Conventional filtering may result into loss of valuable diagnostic information from these signals. This calls for a robust, versatile, and adaptable denoising method applicable in different operative circumstances. In this work, a novel algorithm based on wavelet transform has been developed for denoising of fPCG signals. Successful implementation of wavelet theory in denoising is heavily dependent on selection of suitable wavelet basis function. This work introduces a new mother wavelet basis function for denoising of fPCG signals. The performance of newly developed wavelet is found to be better when compared with the existing wavelets. For this purpose, a two-channel filter bank, based on characteristics of fPCG signal, is designed. The resultant denoised fPCG signals retain the important diagnostic information contained in the original fPCG signal.

Implementation of foetal e-health monitoring system through biotelemetry.

Continuous foetal monitoring of physiological signals is of particular importance for early detection of complexities related to the foetus or the mother's health. The available conventional methods of monitoring mostly perform off-line analysis and restrict the mobility of subjects within a hospital or a room. Hence, the aim of this paper is to develop a foetal e-health monitoring system using mobile phones and wireless sensors for providing advanced healthcare services in the home environment. The system is tested by recording the real-time Foetal Phonocardiography (fPCG) signals from 15 subjects with different gestational periods. The performance of the developed system is compared with the existing ultrasound based Doppler shift technique, ensuring an overall accuracy of 98% of the developed system. The developed framework is non-invasive, cost-effective and simple enough to be used in home care application. It offers advanced healthcare facilities even to the pregnant women living in rural areas and avoids their unnecessary visits at the healthcare centres.

A review and comparative analysis of recent advancements in fetal monitoring techniques.

Over the past few years, various devices and techniques have been developed for electronic fetal monitoring (EFM), which is performed during pregnancy or continuously during labor to ensure normal delivery of a healthy baby. We reviewed and analyzed the performance of currently used EFM techniques with the goal of determining a noninvasive, cost-effective alternative for use in the home environment. This review includes research papers, publications, web sources, product manuals, interviews, formal discussions, and other available literature with the goal of providing a comprehensive comparative analysis of all available EFM techniques. We relate some of the insights gained from reviewing a large number of resources.