Detecting abnormal heart sounds

psychnurse1998 · Feb 23, 2008

I was wondering about what methods you used to improve your ability to identify and detect abnormal heart sounds.

For my CE, I sent for a course on heart and lung sounds. It came with a cd..with recorded normal and abnormal heart sounds. I was reviewing it recently and i was suprised how well i could detect some sounds after a quiz it gives. At home you can listen to these sounds over and over again. I guess someone working in intensive or coronary care would benefit the most from being proficient in heart sounds.

suzanne4, RN · Feb 25, 2008

Moving thread since this has nothing to do specifically with working in CA.

chare · Feb 25, 2008

Learning heart or lung sounds is the same, listen, listen, listen. With all of your patient contacts.

Stated simply, learning heart and lung sounds consists of three phases. After you have listened for a while you will start to identify "normal" sounds. Next you will identify "abnormal" or adventitious sounds. Finally, you will be able to identify specific adventitious sounds.

This is a skill that will develop over time, and the longer you listen, the better you will become.

The Ausculatation Assistant contains recordings of different hearts sounds. The R.A.L.E Repository contains recordings of different lung sounds.

Good luck in your studies.