Techniques are described for analyzing auscultatory sounds to aid a
medical professional in diagnosing physiological conditions of a patient.
A data analysis system, for example, applies singular value decomposition
to auscultatory sounds associated known physiological conditions to
define a set of one or more disease regions within a multidimensional
space. A diagnostic device, such as an electronic stethoscope or personal
digital assistant, applies configuration data from the data analysis
system to generate a set of one or more vectors within the
multidimensional space representative of auscultatory sounds associated
with a patient. The diagnostic device outputs a diagnostic message
associated with a physiological condition of the patient based on the
orientation of the vectors relative to the disease regions within the
multidimensional space.