Importance

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Abstract

The present invention relates to a system and a process for detecting, assessing, grading and diagnosing heart conditions in human beings. The system includes a device for providing or generating an acoustic blood flow signal and a signal representative of the electrical activity of a subject's heart. The device for providing the acoustic blood flow (MCG) signal may be a transducer or microphone attached to the patient, or in the alternative, an acoustic signal stored in a storage device. The device for providing the electrical activity (ECG) signal may be an electrocardiogram device attached to the subject or a stored ECG signal. The ECG signal is conditioned in a conditioning circuit to provide a timing or calibration signal having QRS spikes at the onset of each systolic portion of a heart cycle. The MCG signal passes through its own conditioning circuit to filter out unwanted noise and to amplify low frequency sounds. The timing signal and the MCG signal are fed into a microprocessor wherein the MCG signal is converted in a spectral pattern of heart sounds and matched with the timing signal. The output from the microprocessor is a combined, real time MCG pattern/ECG wave signal which may be displayed on a video monitor, which may be put into hard copy form, and/or which may be stored on a storage device.

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First Claim