Computerized heart sounds analysis

This paper is concerned with a synthesis study of the fast Fourier transform (FFT), the short-time Fourier transform (STFT), the Wigner distribution (WD) and the wavelet transform (WT) in analysing the phonocardiogram signal (PCG). It is shown that these transforms provide enough features of the PCG signals that will help clinics to obtain qualitative and quantitative measurements of the time–frequency (TF) PCG signal characteristics and consequently aid diagnosis. Similarly, it is shown that the frequency content of such a signal can be determined by the FFT without difficulties. The studied techniques (FT, STFT, WD, CWT, DWT and PWT) of analysis can thus be regarded as complementary in the TF analysis of the PCG signal; each will relate to a part distinct from the analysis in question.