Discrimination between respiratory and non-respiratory sound waveforms in dogs using acoustic wave recordings: An objective metric of cough

摘要

Cough is an important respiratory protective mechanism, which when persistent also contributes to disease pathology. It is therefore both a marker for and a target of therapeutic intervention. In dogs, assessment of cough is subjective, generally based on owners perceptions of clinical signs. In humans, acoustic cough monitoring provides objective data on cough frequency by examining acoustic waveforms. We hypothesized that healthy mesocephalic dogs would demonstrate characteristic cough waveforms which could be distinguished from other acoustic behaviors (AB); whine, bark, growl, lick, drink, chew and throat-clear. Data were obtained from 10 healthy employee-owned dogs. Acoustic behaviors were recorded using a CTA-laryngeal-microphone and analyzed using RavenPro bioacoustics software for nine objective acoustic parameters (AP). Similarity between AB were assessed using a one-way analysis of similarity (ANOSIM) with a P 0.001 significance level. Inter- and intra-group statistical analysis was performed using a one-way ANOVA on ranks with P 0.05 significance level.