What is Heart Sounds?
Have you ever heard your heart go lub...dub...? What are these sounds? "Lub" is the closing of the atrioventricular valves while "dub" is the closing of the pulmonary and aortic valves. Place a hand against your chest, preferably on the left side. Why left side? You know now that the heart is placed towards the left like a pyramid of Egypt only inverted with its apex placed on the left side... What do you feel? Do you feel the heart beating? Yes, that is the thumping motion of the left ventricle against the chest. Then, why is there a gap in between the two thumps? It's simply because during this time, the heart is resting. Do you remember what this period is called? Yes, it is the diastole and the importance of this resting phase is that the heart receives its nutrition and air supply during this period. It's a well-deserved breather for an organ that goes on and on for a hundred odd years without stopping.
Now that you have palpated or felt the heart, let us hear or auscultate the chest. Place your ear on the chest of some friend or relative. What do you hear? Doctors use an instrument called as stethoscope to listen to your heart beat. It is an instrument used for examining the heart and lungs by conveying to the ear of the examiner, the sounds produced in the thorax. This is built on the very same principle of talking to someone 100 m away with a cord of string attached or a hollow bamboo conducting sound better when placed against the chest. The stethoscope has a bell and a conducting tube and earpieces. The bell is placed on the chest to hear the wonders the heart unveil before us. The tap of the music is like the beat of the heart. Snap your fingers, tap your feet or make a baby sleep against your chest, what are the common factors? It's the synchronization with your heartbeat. The baby has a bonding and recognizes the mother from the heartbeat when placed on her chest from the womb memory. The song troupes synchronize their rhythmic dance routine by placing a hand on the heart. That's our fascinating four chambered heart beating as one, rhythmically that gets the coordination of the choreographic team right. Thus we reach where we started from and the cardiac cycle starts all over again.