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 2012
Comparative StudyAn ultra-sensitive wearable accelerometer for continuous heart and lung sound monitoring.
This paper presents a chest-worn accelerometer with high sensitivity for continuous cardio-respiratory sound monitoring. The accelerometer is based on an asymmetrical gapped cantilever which is composed of a bottom mechanical layer and a top piezoelectric layer separated by a gap. This novel structure helps to increase the sensitivity by orders of magnitude compared with conventional cantilever based accelerometers. ⋯ A built-in charge amplifier is used to amplify the output voltage of the sensor. A sensitivity of 86V/g and a noise floor of 40ng/√Hz are obtained. Preliminary tests for recording both cardiac and respiratory signals are carried out on human body and the new sensor exhibits better performance compared with a high-end electronic stethoscope.
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Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc · Jan 2012
Obstructive sleep apnea detection using SVM-based classification of ECG signal features.
Sleep apnea is the instance when one either has pauses of breathing in their sleep, or has very low breath while asleep. This pause in breathing can range in frequency and duration. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is the common form of sleep apnea, which is currently tested through polysomnography (PSG) at sleep labs. ⋯ The presented classification technique is based on support vector machines (SVM) and has been trained and tested on sleep apnea recordings from subjects with and without OSA. The results show that our automated classification system can recognize epochs of sleep disorders with a high accuracy of 96.5% or higher. Furthermore, the proposed system can be used as a basis for future development of a tool for OSA screening.
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Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc · Jan 2012
AREA: an augmented reality system for epidural anaesthesia.
Spinal needle injection procedures are used for anesthesia and analgesia, such as lumbar epidurals. These procedures require careful placement of a needle, both to ensure effective therapy delivery and to avoid damaging sensitive tissue such as the spinal cord. An important step in such procedures is the accurate identification of the vertebral levels, which is currently performed using manual palpation with a reported 30% success rate for correct identification. ⋯ The prototype system demonstrates better accuracy for identifying the vertebrae than traditional manual methods.
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Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc · Jan 2012
Evaluating the usability of a virtual reality-based Android application in managing the pain experience of wheelchair users.
Pain constitutes an important medical concern that can have severe implications to a wheelchair user's quality of life. Results from studies indicate that pain is a common problem in this group of individuals, having a reported frequency of always (12%) and everyday (33%). ⋯ As a result, in this paper we present an Android application (PainDroid) that has been enhanced with Virtual Reality (VR) technology for the purpose of improving the management of pain. Our evaluation with a group of wheelchair users revealed that PainDroid demonstrated high usability among this population, and is foreseen that it can make an important contribution in research on the assessment and management of pain.
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Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc · Jan 2012
Examining intrinsic thalamic resting state networks using graph theory analysis: implications for mTBI detection.
A major challenge associated with understanding mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is the absence of biomarkers in standard clinical imaging modalities. Furthermore, the inhomogeneity of mTBI location and intensity, combined with latent symptoms further complicates identification and treatment. A growing body of evidence suggests that the thalamus may be injured or susceptible to change as the result of mTBI. ⋯ Our results suggest the presence of distinct unilateral thalamic differences in mTBI subjects. We also observe correlations of the thalamic changes with clinical assessments. The findings from this study have implications for functional networks in the thalamus and its projections for application as a potential biomarker for mTBI detection.