Question

What an observation you can get when you measure Heart sounds measurement using Auscultation technique?

Answer 1

Auscultation method is commonly used method of listening to the body sounds.Here stethoscope is used to listen the sounds produced by the body organs such as heart, lungs, small blood vessels, intestine etc.

Auscultation method is commonly used to identify the frequency, intensity, duration, number and quality of the sounds produced by the body organs. This will help in identifying whether the body organs is functioning well or not.

Cardiac system and heart is the common organ examined by auscultation method. Where the stethoscope is placed over different land marks such as tricuspid area, mitral area, aortic area etc. The normal cardiac sounds lub and dub indicate the normal functioning of cardiac valves and the normal flow of blood. Any abnormal pathology may associated with abnormal sounds, rate, quality and rhythm.

Usually in a normal healthy individual, the cardiac auscultation helps to identify the S1 and S2 heart sounds. They are produced due to the closure of atrio ventricular valves and aortic and pulmonic valves. Apart from the S1 S2 sounds, abnormal cardiac sounds, murmers, friction rub, presence of S3 and S4 sounds are also heard in some individuals. Which may indicate the abnormal cardiac rhythm, valve problem, stenosis of the valves, fluid collection etc. So auscultation helps in identifying the abnormal sounds, valvular functions, friction rub, murmers etc.It helps the physician to plan for higher investigations like ECG, ECHO etc.

Abnormalities associated with cardiac rhythm can be easily identify by proper auscultation methods. Electronic stethoscopes are widely used by doctor's now a days to record the abnormal sounds, murmers etc. Along with auscultation of cardiac sounds, JVP, BP, peripheral circulation etc can also measured to gain information regarding the cardiovascular system.

Hence cardiac auscultation is a simple, cheap and intial assessment tool to identify various pathology of the heart, lungs and the over all cardiovascular system.