A microcomputer-based interactive cough sound analysis system

The occurrence and nature of cough sounds, especially those occurring in asthma in young children, is of considerable interest to workers in paediatrics and general practice. To facilitate our research into the characteristics of such sounds, we have developed a microcomputer-based analysis system, which we call COFF. In this paper we discuss the design and implementation of the system, emphasising its user-friendly, interactive features, and the manner in which it efficiently manages the large amounts of data that research into sounds incurs. We illustrate the operation of the system with examples of spectrograms computed from cough sounds recorded simultaneously at the mouth and through the chest wall.