STETHOSCOPE OR STETHOPHONE

Stethoscope: a friend or an enemy?

CONTEXT The stethoscope is a universal tool in the hospital that is in direct contact with many patients and can therefore be a vector in the dissemination of bacterial infections. OBJECTIVE To research the presence of bacteria, fungi and yeast on the stethoscope diaphragm and the resistance of bacteria to antimicrobial drugs. DESIGN Descriptive, prospective, non-controlled. SETTING A ter...

Stethoscope Acoustics

IT is an anachronism that the stethoscope, introduced in 1819, remains an indispensable medical tool today although no standards have ever been set for its acoustical performance.' Neither has a standard test been established for evaluating the acoustics of the intact instrument. Furthermore, there is no information on the intimate acoustical interaction of the stethoscope with the doctors' ear...

Binaural Hearing—before and after the Stethophone

The stethoscope: celebration or cremation after 200 years?

The stethoscope is currently at the crossroads. For two centuries now, the stethoscope has been a central part of examining the thorax. Nevertheless, this omnipresent tool of the medical profession (‘conversation piece’) is at the heart of the debate over how diagnostic medicine should be practised. At the moment, there are many divergent views on the value of using the stethoscope as a primary...

Embedded Stethoscope

A stethoscope is an instrument used for auscultations to convey heart sounds as well sounds in the other parts of the body. However, traditional stethoscopes are restricted only to audio representation of such sounds and the diagnosis depends on the expertise of the doctor. This project is an attempt to develop an Embedded Stethoscope to capture heart sounds which offers better noise cancellati...