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The recording of heart vibrations: a problem of vibration measurement on soft tissue

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Abstract

The determination of the effect of loading of the chest wall exerted by a contact phonocardiographic microphone, has been attempted in earlier investigations by the measurement of the mechanical properties of the microphone and the chest wall in combination with mechanical models describing the coupling phenomenon (method 1). For computing the acceleration response of the microphone applied to the chest wall a number of unverified assumptions were made. In the paper a method is described for experimental determination of the coupling characteristic. A specially designed ultralight pick-up (1 g) was applied for recording the quasi-unloaded vibrations and the average amplitude spectrum was calculated. The procedure was repeated at the same site, the chest wall successively being loaded with different masses and two commercial microphones (method 2). Logarithmic transfer functions of the loaded to unloaded situations have been computed. The experiments were performed on six healthy persons. The results of method 1 appeared to be very similar to those obtained with method 2 when a Verburg model was assumed. In this manner we determined the acceleration response of microphones applied to the chest wall, which is both of interest for standardised and quantitative phonocardiography.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Physiology and Physiopathology, University of Brussels VUB, Belgium

    H. Vermarien

  2. Department of Cardiology, Leiden University Hospital, The Netherlands

    E. van Vollenhoven

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  1. H. Vermarien
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  2. E. van Vollenhoven
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Vermarien, H., van Vollenhoven, E. The recording of heart vibrations: a problem of vibration measurement on soft tissue. Med. Biol. Eng. Comput. 22, 168–178 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02446821

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02446821

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