What is the medical need?
Some cardiovascular diseases result in issues with heart beat synchronization, valve closure, enlargement of the heart, vessel deformations, muscle contractility and ....
The airflow into the lung can be obstructed ...
Those processes can create sound patterns that propagate to the skin surface. It requires amplification and transduction to pick them up with the human ear. The human ear is an ideal system to measure and analyze those sounds as it does not need auxiliary equipment to record and learn to diagnose.
What are the biological and physical processes that are utilized?
What causes the sounds?
How does the sound propagate?
How can it be picked up?
What treatment strategy or behavioral change is enabled?
Besides visual and tactile examination, listening to sounds from inside the body is a standard and common diagnostic technique ... The physical exam ...
What is the societal impact?
Inexpensive and standardized examination procedures are an important and effective approach for disease prevention. The access to inexpensive and comprehensive analysis of physiologic diseases ...
Measurement System (Sensors and Transducers)
Regular stethoscope has two input configurations. What are they used for?
What is most common configuration for an electronic stethoscope?
Actuator System (Electrical, Mechanical, Optical, Chemical)
Passive system, resonance enhancement, isolation from surrounding sounds
Control System (Human, Microcontroller, Computer)
Requires human hearing and brain for sound analysis
Power System (Electrical, Chemical, Physical)
Passive, no power needed
Data Transmission and Storage
Acoustic
Living System Interaction
Requires contact to skin surface. Cleaning and decontamination.
Customization
Many option on color
Can be accessorized (personal statement)
Cost Management
Likely the materials for membrane, tubing and interface with ear are chosen to provide ideal acoustic transduction and inexpensive manufacturing.
Regulations
As medical device it must follow FDA guidelines and likely FDA has guidance papers for new types of stethoscopes.
Intellectual Property Analysis (U.S.)
Check how many new patents and applications are filed each year by searching for Stethoscope. If possible group it for what kind of modifications and approaches are currently filed. it is possible that a lot of patents were made. Limit to last 10 years. In google scholar you likely can see which ones are cited a lot by other publications. Limit your work to 20 or less patents
Market Analysis (U.S. and Developing Countries)
Please find any publicly available market analysis for stethoscopes. Please check on alternative techniques such as electronic stethoscope.
hat is the status of electronic stethoscopes, are they "allowed", are they used, are they a viable product?