An automated system for 24-h monitoring of cough frequency: the leicester cough monitor.

Journal article

The objective monitoring of cough for extended periods of time has long been recognized as an important step towards a better understanding of this symptom, and a better management of chronic cough patients. In this paper, we present a system for the automatic analysis of 24-h, continuous, ambulatory recordings of cough. The system uses audio recordings from a miniature microphone and the detection algorithm is based on statistical models of the time-spectral characteristics of cough sounds. We validated the system against manual counts obtained by a trained observer on 40 ambulatory recordings and our results show a median sensitivity value of 85.7%, median positive predictive value of 94.7% and median false positive rate of 0.8 events/h. An analysis application was developed, with a graphical user interface, allowing the use of the system in clinical settings by technical or medical staff. The result of the analysis of a recording session is presented as a concise, graphical-based report. The modular nature of the system interface facilitates its enhancement with the integration of further modules.

Authors: Matos, S; Birring, S; Pavord, I; Evans, D

• Journal: IEEE transactions on bio-medical engineering
• Volume: 54
• Issue: 8
• Pages: 1472-1479
• Publication date: 2007-08-01
• DOI: 10.1109/tbme.2007.900811
• EISSN: 1558-2531
• ISSN: 0018-9294
• Language: English
• Keywords: Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted; Cough; Equipment Design; Algorithms; Monitoring, Ambulatory; Auscultation; Sound Spectrography; Equipment Failure Analysis; Humans