Cough is a common presentation in childhood. It is one of the early symptom of respiratory disease such as upper respiratory tract infection, cough variant asthma, allergic rhinitis, bronchitis and pneumonia. These conditions are common ailments in childhood. The history of cough and description of cough given by caretakers and patients are often vague and assessment of cough quality is often subjective. The quality of cough is often assigned a dichotomous category of dry cough and wet cough.
Computer assisted cough analysis has been developed in recent years to aid subjective classification of cough. The sound spectrum and frequencies of cough is being researched to better define the quality of cough. The quality of cough gives meaningful information about the state of the respiratory status. Cough sound analysis has been shown to rapidly diagnose pneumonia in humans using cough sound analysis and in differentiating wet and dry cough.
The investigators hypothesize that each respiratory pathology will have its spectral cough characteristics. Analysis of cough spectrum and comparing to a library of cough spectra data will be able to aid differentiation of the underlying conditions for the various cough spectrum and hence facilitating management.
The study aim is to develop a computer processing technique of cough sounds and determine their spectral characteristics for the common causes of cough to derive an assisted assay of cough spectrum for an objective assessment of cough.
