Conference proceedings : ... Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. Annual Conference
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Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc · Jan 2006
Evaluation of external cardiac massage performance during hypogravity simulation.
Preservation of astronaut crew health during an exploration mission to the Moon or Mars will be crucial to mission success. The likelyhood of a life threatening medical condition occurring during a mission to Mars has been estimated by NASA to be 1% per year. Since basic life support is a vital skill in critical care medicine, plans must be in place for cardiopulmonary resuscitation in both microgravity and hypogravity (i.e. on the surface of the Moon or Mars). ⋯ Elbow flexion was measured using an electrogoniometer in order to assess the use of arm muscles to achieve chest compressions. This study found that depth (Lunar and Mars) and rate (Mars) of chest compression was below American Heart Association recommendations during hypogravity simulation in the female group. Furthermore, elbow flexion proved to be significantly greater during Lunar and Mars hypogravity simulation than that of the 1G control condition, suggesting that upper arm force may be used to counter the loss of body weight in an attempt to maintain adequate chest compression under these conditions.
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Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc · Jan 2006
Controlled Clinical TrialInformation flow to assess cardiorespiratory interactions in patients on weaning trials.
Nonlinear processes of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) can produce breath-to-breath variability in the pattern of breathing. In order to provide assess to these nonlinear processes, nonlinear statistical dependencies between heart rate variability and respiratory pattern variability are analyzed. ⋯ The results show lower complexity with an increase of information flow in group A than in group B. Furthermore, a more (weakly) coupled nonlinear oscillator behavior is observed in the series of group A than in B.
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Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc · Jan 2006
ReviewIntelligent alarm processing into clinical knowledge.
Alarmed physiological monitors have become a standard part of the ICU. While the alarms generated by these monitors can be important indicators of an altered physiological condition, most are unhelpful to medical staff due to a high incidence of false and clinically insignificant alarms. ⋯ In this paper we review the current state of intelligent alarm processing and describe an integrated systems methodology to extract clinically relevant information from physiological data. Such a method would aid significantly in the reduction of false alarms and provide nursing staff with a more reliable indicator of patient condition.
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Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc · Jan 2006
Optimizing deep brain stimulation parameter selection with detailed models of the electrode-tissue interface.
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an established clinical therapy for the treatment of Parkinson's disease. However, selecting stimulation parameters for maximal clinical benefit can be a difficult and time consuming process that typically requires a highly trained and experienced individual to achieve acceptable results. To address this limitation we developed a Windows-based software package (StimExplorer) intended to aid the clinical implementation of DBS technology. ⋯ The software then provides theoretically optimal stimulation parameter suggestions, intended to represent the start point for clinical programming of the DBS device. The software system is packaged into a clinician-friendly graphical user interface that allows for interactive 3D visualization. The goals of the StimExplorer system are to educate clinicians on the impact of stimulation parameter manipulation, and improve the customization of DBS to individual patients.
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Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc · Jan 2006
High rate shear insult delivered to cortical neurons produces heterogeneous membrane permeability alterations.
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) occurs when brain tissue is subjected to stresses and strains at high rates and magnitudes, yet the mechanisms of injury and cellular thresholds are not well understood. The events that occur at the time of and immediately after an insult are hypothesized to initiate cell dysfunction or death following a critical cell strain and strain rate. We analyzed neuronal plasma membrane disruption in two in vitro injury models-fluid shear stress delivered to planar cultures and shear strain induction of 3-D neural cultures. ⋯ Furthermore, increased membrane permeability led to increases in electrophysiological disturbance. Specifically, cells that exhibited increased membrane permeability did not fire random action potentials, in contrast to neighboring cells that had intact plasma membranes. This approach provides an experimental framework to investigate injury tolerance criteria as well as mechanistically driven therapeutic strategies.