Journal of clinical monitoring
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Comparative Study
Forehead pulse oximetry compared with finger pulse oximetry and arterial blood gas measurement.
Usual monitoring sites for pulse oximetry involve the fingers, toes, ear lobe, and nasal septum. This study examined the performance of a forehead sensor compared with a finger sensor for the pulse oximeter and arterial blood gas (ABG) analysis. Ten healthy adult volunteers and 22 ventilator-dependent patients were studied. ⋯ The forehead pulse oximeter sensor works well on healthy, well-oxygenated volunteers. Difficulty was experienced when applying and using the sensor on critically ill patients. The reliability of the forehead pulse oximeter sensor has not been established at low saturations.
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It is well recognized that catheter-manometer systems significantly distort direct radial artery pressure measurements. Sinusoidal frequency analysis and the flush method of assessing the degree of distortion caused by the monitoring system were compared to determine whether these two methods agree in the estimation of natural frequency and damping coefficient. The frequency response of 30 radial artery catheter-manometer systems used for intensive-care unit patients was measured by the flush method and sinusoidal frequency analysis. ⋯ No secondary resonance peaks were observed up to a frequency of 200 Hz. The measured frequency response demonstrated that the average catheter-manometer system in use in our intensive care unit would cause significant distortion of the radial artery pressure, with the mean natural frequency (fn) of 14.7 +/- 3.7 Hz and the mean damping coefficient (zeta) of 0.24 +/- 0.07. Although the 30 monitoring systems had identical configurations and visible bubbles were carefully removed, a wide range of frequency responses was found (fn = 10.2 to 25.3; zeta = 0.15 to 0.44).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)