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
An integrated system supporting training in medical and administrative decision making in the emergency department.
The aim of the present project was the development of an integrated computer-based system supporting training in medical and administrative decision making in the Emergency Department. The system comprises of, first, a module supporting on-line acquaintance with Emergency Medical Guidelines, second, a vital-signs monitoring and processing module, and finally an administrative module organizing the most relevant facts about a patient's health status in compliance with the ASTM E2369-0 Standard Specification for Continuity of Care Record, in order to be employed after discharge from the Emergency Care to a hospital ward or to homecare.
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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.
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Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc · Jan 2006
Coma duration prediction in diffuse axonal injury: analyses of apparent diffusion coefficient and clinical prognostic factors.
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the hypothesis that the Apparent Diffusion Coefficient (ADC) values combined with initial clinical factors indicates the depth of shearing lesions in the brain structure and therefore relates to coma duration of diffuse axonal injury (DAI). Seventy-four adult patients (48 male and 26 female patients) with diffuse axonal injury were examined with convention MR imaging and diffusion weighted MR imaging between 2 hours and 20 days after injury. Apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) maps were obtained and the mean ADC values of each Region of Interest (ROI) were measured using MRI console software. ⋯ Post-traumatic coma duration of DAI could be predicted by cerebral MRI findings in the acute to subacute stage after head injury combined with clinical prognostic factors. Age, ADC scores, GCS, number of lesions are highly significant in predicting coma duration. The technique presented herein might provide a tool for in vivo detection of DAI for the coma duration at the early stages in patients with traumatic brain injury.
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Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc · Jan 2006
An evaluation of a PTT-based method for noninvasive and cuffless estimation of arterial blood pressure.
The aim of this study is to determine if a noninvasive and cuffless blood pressure (BP) estimation method using pulse transit time (PTT) can accurately track the changes in BP after a treadmill exercise. Experiments were conducted on 12 healthy subjects, who were directed to run on a treadmill at 10 kph for 4 minutes. For each subject, 13 trials were recorded in total, including 11 trials obtained immediately after exercise and during the 60-minute recovery period. ⋯ Both PTT-based device and Finometer were calibrated initially and Finometer calibration was also performed after exercise to the sphygmomanometer. Experimental results showed that there was only occasional discrepancy between BPs measured by Finometer and PTT-based device during the recovery period, i.e., at 5 minutes after exercise (p=0.008 for systolic BP and p=0.03 for diastolic BP). At all other post exercise time spots there were no significant differences between BPs measured by Finometer and PTT-based device.
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Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc · Jan 2006
Implementation of a burn scar assessment system by ultrasound techniques.
Tissue injury and its ensuing healing process cause scar formation. In addition to physical disability, the subsequent disfigurements from burns often bring negative psychological impacts on the survivors. Scar hypertrophy and contracture limit the joint motion and body function of the patient. ⋯ In this report, the quantitative assessment system was used to evaluate the scar of a seriously burned patient. In order to verify the reliability of systematic reconstruction method, we constructed a phantom to imitate the scar tissue. The results show that it can achieve more than 90% in accuracy.