Biomedical sciences instrumentation
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In most instances, the treatment of major burn victims begins in the emergency room of the hospital closest to the accident site. It can be assumed that the emergency room personnel in most hospitals rarely see patients with major burns. ⋯ To assist these individuals a fluid resuscitation calculation application has been developed to run on a hand-held personal digital assistant (Palm Pilot). This hand-held application is meant to assist in emergency situations where time is short, thoughtful computation is not possible, and a quick determination of fluid replacement therapy is important for the survival of the patient.
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Functional Neuromuscular Stimulation (FNS) systems activate paralyzed limbs by electrically stimulating motor neurons. These systems have been used to restore functions such as standing and stepping in people with thoracic level spinal cord injury. Research in our laboratory is directed at the design and evaluation of the control algorithms for generating posture and movement. ⋯ In our laboratory, we use the Flock of Birds (Ascension Technology Corp.) motion tracking sensor system to monitor limb segment position and orientation (6 degrees of freedom). Errors in the sensor system have been characterized and nonlinear polynomial models have been developed to account for these errors. With this compensation, the error in the distance measurement is reduced by 90 % so that the maximum error is less than 1 cm.
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One method for validating a biosensor is through comparative assessment of the test sensor with a control sensor when both sensors are presented with the same inputs. In the case of adult pulse oximeter (SpO2) sensors, both sensors should ideally be placed on the same digit of the subject. ⋯ Hardware and software requirements for the transfer standard, and a statistical method for analyzing the data will be discussed. A method for the direct comparison of two SpO2 sensors using a "switch over" trial design will also be presented.