Cigna C., Patrucco M., Dalmasso F.

The optimal diagnostic technique in medical science should be together sensitive, exact and non-invasive, furthermore it should quickly give info about the particular investigated pathology, with the aim to find the specific disease cause in order to permit to recognize the best and more effective treatment. The described “ideal” diagnostic tool should assess the pathology in the most exact way and it is fundamental that it can identify any deviation from normal organic condition as soon as possible in order to reduce any possibility of damage and to permit a total recovery. Another important aspect of diagnostic techniques is the requirement of “non-invasivity” to avoid further damages in an ill body. Acoustics was already used, in the past, to study pulmonary sounds as pulmonary crackles caused by silicosis and other professional diseases, but in this case a very common symptom is investigated: the cough. The paper deals with the methodology and the first results of an experimental research work aimed to identify and mark out the parameters (e.g. typical sound pressure levels, lenght, frequency spectra, ...) able to describe the cough, a very common sign of a lot of pulmonary pathologies; in order to get this aim, it was decided to use acoustical techniques to investigate cough events as a simple and non-invasive diagnostic tool to recognize their cause. Starting from an experimental campaign, a mixed group of people, with different diseases is studied, and their cough events are analyzed with common instruments (sound level meters and DAT recorders) with the aim to identify the specific parameters of cough related to different pathologies and the possible relations with other physiologic parameters (e.g. respiratory parameters as FEV1), the paper shows the first experimental results of the research and some considerations for future development.