Patent ID: 8317717

Claim:
A heart sound detection system, comprising: an acoustic signal input adapted to receive an acoustic signal indicative of heart sounds including second heart sounds (S 2 ) and third heart sounds (S 3 ); and a heart sound detector coupled to the acoustic signal input, the heart sound detector including: an S 2 detector adapted to detect S 2 using the acoustic signal; an S 3 window generator adapted to generate an S 3 window in response to each detection of S 2 ; an S 3 detector adapted to detect S 3 using the acoustic signal and an S 3 threshold during the S 3 windows; a measurement module adapted to detect an acoustic energy using the acoustic signal; and an S 3 threshold generator adapted to determine the S 3 threshold using the acoustic energy, wherein the S 3 threshold generator is adapted to normalize the S 3 threshold using the acoustic energy.