A new method for objectively evaluating nocturnal cough in adults

Abstract

Background: For the management of cough diseases in adults, an objective method of evaluating nocturnal cough is required.

Methods: In Study 1, a cough monitoring system was evaluated using 25 adult volunteers. In Study 2, the cough monitoring system was validated using 20 samples from 10 adult patients with cough diseases obtained overnight. In hospitalized patients, our original cough monitoring system with a microphone and accelerometer was used. At the same time, coughs were recorded using a video camera with digital sound recording. The number of coughs in each 8-h video-audio recording was counted manually by three trained observers. All cough data were printed out, and the basal number of cough events, using both the printed-out data and video-audio recordings, were then calculated by three observers.

Results: In Study 1, the cough monitoring system demonstrated good agreement with the number of coughs counted by examiners (sensitivity 99.2%, specificity 98.9%). In Study 2, there was significant agreement in the counts of natural coughs between our system and the video-audio method (p < 0.0001) and between our system and the basal cough events (p < 0.0001).

Conclusions: Our method demonstrated excellent agreement with the video-audio recording method in adults and is considered extremely useful for the objective monitoring of overnight cough in adult patients with cough diseases.

Keywords: Adult; Cough; Cough monitoring system; Overnight.