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Embedded Linux On a Digital Stethoscope
An anonymous reader writes "A team of electrical and computer engineering students at Calvin College is designing a digital electronic stethoscope running uClinux as its operating system. While there are many embedded devices built on Linux operating systems, medical devices running open-source software are extremely rare because of the perceived difficulty in obtaining FDA validation. The device is in its early stages of development, but major hardware choices have been made, and the team has recently released a Project Proposal and Feasibility Study."
OK I'll bite. Why does a stethoscope need an OS in the first place? How much file I/O, multitasking, networking etc. does a single-purpose device like this really do?
...installing Windows Vista on the aforementioned stethescope. Would there be room enough for McAffee?
No, no sig. Really.
ThePromenader
I would date a girl who runs linux. Sadly, I think that women will remain closed-source at least for the rest of my lifetime.
does my spoon run linux?
No. There was a project to port Linux to the spoon, but there was a lot of infighting about future directions and major members left, so the project was effectively shelved.
does my dog run linux?
What breed of dog? Seriously, if you want help from the community you have to specify the exact breed of the dog and anything else which might help someone come up with an answer for you...
does my gf run linux?
What's a gf?
is the water linux friendly?
If it's normal H2O then yes, probably. Some people have reported issues with Deuterium and Tritium when used with Linux. ymmv.
will consuming that extra donut will have marginal effect on penetration of linux?
To quote Homer Simpson - "Donuts. Is there nothing they can't do?"
You are wrong about this one. The spoon project still exists. It just got sporked.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Actually, the spoon project did fork into a knife project.
If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
littmann make a variety of stethoscopes including digital ones, and have done for some time.
However, dont believe the hype. They are of very limited clinical value. No hospital cardiology diagnosis these days would be based on auscultation. (echocardiography would be used). For taking BP the traditional tube plus ear-pieces 'scope more than suffices.
When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown in to the sea
OK, I realise that most of the other replies are critical, too
Really this is just using tech. for it's own sake - and introducing a whole bunch of unnecessary problems into what is really a very simple procedure. Instead of a simple piece of rubber tube, with a "thingy" at each end you are now reliant on an embedded device with it's own power requirements, a link to a host PC with software compatability and yet more power requirements and finally the doctor or nurse wears a headphone to listen to exactly the same sounds they'd hear through a conventional stethoscope.
there is a slight glimmer of hope for this: remove the doctor.
If you can possibly make this device totally idiot-proof and throwaway cheap, it might just find a use for remote diagnostics, where a patient can self-monitor, upload their "swooshing" noises to an AI which does most of the work.
Of course this presuposes that the patient isn't too busy having a heart attack, and can get their PC connected up to the net, and the battery in the device hasn't gone flat, and the AI at the other end is working, and someone can take the necessary action (if needed).
On second thoughts, scrub the glimmer of hope. There are just too many things can go wrong
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
my partner's rapid heart beat was what lead to her being diagnosed with a certain illness. a doctor could very well play back the beats to show there was no reasonable way for him to know a person had a certain illness that related to it.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
There are electronic stethoscopes available, but they are expensive and noisy. The ability to electronically produce a clean sound from a stethoscope would have some niche uses, primarily in the educational area. It would be nice to be able to allow a gaggle of interns to hear a patient's heart rather than to have each of them have to listen individually with their own stethoscope. I wonder if the designers have included Bluetooth in the original design. As was already mentioned there may be pros and cons to recording stethoscope sounds; I tend to believe that recording the sounds would become desirable for some doctors. Doctors tend to record and document everything as it is, and this could make it practical to record stethoscope sounds, Yeah, the prototype may be big, heavy, and a battery pig; that means that there are many opportunities to reduce its size, weight, and power consumption.
Although the original design does not include waveform diagnostics, analysis, and display capability, that could be added later at little cost.
Disclaimer : I A A MD.
Currently, any exam can be recorded, stored, shared with an expert for additional advices, compared for reference, you can build libraries for teaching or for personnal reference, you can reprocess these data off-line to "clean them", you can mine them to discover whatever interests you, you can reproduce that data using a different way to display it (using false color instead of greys to help visualise contrasts, or more complex math like using fast fourier to transform Doppler-echo noises into a nice colored graphic) etc...
This include everything from the most high tech devices like 3D scanners, MRIs, etc. to the most simple technical examination (electrocardiograms) or even the most trivial step in examination : overall visual aspect (digital photo cameras are a very valuable tool in several arrays of medicine including dermatology and surgery).
And with all this digitalised information, you can even throw computer at the task of helping the clinicians. MRIs comes easily as an example where computer may help making something useful out of the data. But even much simpler exams like electro cardiogramme nowadays include small embed chip that can automatically recognise a couple of pathologies. Most modern machine will print in nice small message like "90% suspicion of grade I atrio-ventricular blocking", in addition of the actual tracks.
(And in fact modern defibrillator heavily rely on on-board electronic intelligence. The iron-like you still see in movies aren't used that much. The modern ones are semi automatic : you stick two big electrodes on the front and side of the chest. the machine goes automatically an ECG, decide the procedure to follow, and announce on a small embed screen and using voice. The practitioner only has to push a button to confirm and do the shock if he agrees with the machine's conclusions. Everything is automatic and comes with voice instruction so even untrained personal could use it).
Everything recordable and digitilized ? No. Nearly everything.
The century old stethoscope isn't. You use it, you hear something, but you can't share it or store it for further reference.
Meanwhile, there's a lot of information that trained doctor can hear in the stethoscope.
But it's hard to show to other (you can store it in a library to keep it for a lecture, you can't point it with a finger on the graph to a student), the student need luck to be around when there's something interesting for her/him to hear. It can't be reproduced.
It's almost some kind of voodoo art, where you have a couple of old expert who can diagnose almost anything with a simple stethoscope and by looking how the patient walk to enter the room. But they can't easily transmit their art. Sometimes you just wish you could keep them stored in formaldehyde.
This gadget that those engineer are working on is a nice alternative to the formaline. A simple gadget that'll help store, archive, send, etc. the noises you may encounter when examining with a stethoscope.
Also, I happen to be a little bit hard hearing. Not much. I doesn't pose any problem in normal life (I can enjoy classical music concerts for example). But when it comes to hearth noises, I start to show my limits and I suck with a stethoscope.
Such a device could enable me to obtain better (cleaned of noise) signal. Or even, as the devices use apparently open source software (uCLinux), it won't be too difficult to bolt in some crypto+network capability and display a visual representation of the sound on my Palm's screen.
I really think that throwing some electronics inside the stethoscope was long due, and I'm happy that the problem is currently being tackled with open source software.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
" ... medical devices running open-source software are extremely rare because of the perceived difficulty in obtaining FDA validation ..."
That is totally inaccurate. There are plenty of medical devices in use running Linux, and they all get FDA approval without any issue. As long as you go through the same procedures in testing/quality-assurance and documentation it's all the same end result to the FDA. Even in the case of software which is complex relying on other pieces of software, black box testing solves the requirement for reproducing steps to a particular software operation.
What is it going to take to get those reporting on open source to cut down on FUD?
I work for a manufacturer in the pharmaceutical industry and I hear people say things like Linux and/or Open Source is a problem with the FDA, but I haven't seen anything yet to back that up. Period.
To "validate" software with the FDA, you really only need to do three things:
1) Make your software/system/device secure
2) Have control over the system
3) Document #1 and #2
There are people who come from an old guard that have all sorts of misconceptions about what can and can't pass FDA regulations. It seems to stem from a gross misunderstanding of what the regulations actually say.
I've read the portions that deal with computers and electronic information. There is absolutely nothing in it to suggest open source even remotely is an issue. I suspect this is an urban legend started by companies selling proprietary software.
Regardless, the regulations (Part 11) are the FDA Bible and so long as you can satisfy the requirements in them which basically boil down to the three I listed above, then you are in compliance.
To convince yourself this is true, read this.
does my spoon run linux?
There is no spoon.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest