Footnotes

• Contributors JAS and LAH contributed equally to the writing of this manuscript.

• Competing interests JAS is a named inventor on a patent, owned by University Hospital of South Manchester, describing a method for cough detection and monitoring licensed to Vitalograph; however, no financial benefits have been received. Afferent Pharmaceuticals paid staff cost for conduct of study (ref. 10) to the University Hospital of South Manchester and University of Manchester.

• Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.