![]() ![]() However, pulmonary diseases such as COPD are universally underdiagnosed and are identified late during a patient’s disease course, often resulting in silent irreparable organ damage 4.Įpisodic and continuous monitoring of mechano-acoustics signals emanating from the lungs using a wearable sensor system can provide valuable diagnostic information by detecting early pathological adventitious breath sounds 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Such a system would allow implementation of earlier disease recognition, diagnosis and management with the hope to slow, alter or cure a patient’s disease expression 3, 4. A potential effective strategy to lower the morbidity and mortality of these diseases and improve the quality of life of affected individuals is to detect early pre-symptomatic pathophysiological changes such as abnormal breath sounds and/or breathing patterns integral to these conditions. The most prevalent of these conditions are chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, lower respiratory tract infections (pneumonia and tuberculosis) and lung cancer. Pulmonary diseases affect over 1 billion individuals worldwide resulting in premature deaths of 4 million people each year, consequently placing an enormous medical and economic burden on the world healthcare system 1. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the increasing incidence of acute pulmonary conditions globally, and the lack of adequate healthcare diagnostics for both the early detection and monitoring of life threatening respiratory disorders 1, 2. ![]() This unobtrusive wearable system can enable both episodic and longitudinal evaluation of lung sounds that allow for the early detection and/or ongoing monitoring of pulmonary disease. The performance of the ACM sensor was compared to recordings from a state-of-art digital stethoscope, and the efficacy of the developed system is demonstrated by conducting an exploratory research study aimed at recording pathological mechano-acoustic signals from hospitalized patients with a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbation, pneumonia, and acute decompensated heart failure. This enhanced ACM sensor leverages a nano-gap transduction mechanism to achieve high sensitivity to weak high frequency vibrations occurring on the surface of the skin due to underlying lung pathologies. ![]() Here, we present a wearable sensor module comprising of a hermetically encapsulated, high precision accelerometer contact microphone (ACM) which enables both episodic and longitudinal assessment of lung sounds, breathing patterns and respiratory rates using a single integrated sensor. Adventitious lung sounds including crackles, wheezes, rhonchi, bronchial breath sounds, stridor or pleural rub and abnormal breathing patterns function as essential clinical biomarkers for the early identification, accurate diagnosis and monitoring of pulmonary disorders. Monitoring pathological mechano-acoustic signals emanating from the lungs is critical for timely and cost-effective healthcare delivery. ![]()
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