Design Article
Streamlining the design of portable medical electronics
2/25/2011 5:46 PM EST
Glucose monitor
A glucose meter (or glucometer) is a medical device used to determine the concentration of glucose in the blood. A small drop of blood, obtained by pricking the skin with a lancet, is placed on a disposable test strip that the meter reads and uses to calculate the blood glucose level. The two types of glucometers are electrochemical based and optical reflection based.
Electrochemical-based glucometers are the most popular type, Figure 5. Electrochemical test strips have electrodes where a precise bias voltage is applied with a digital-to-analog converter and a current proportional to the glucose in the blood is measured as a result of the electrochemical reaction on the test strip.
There can be one or more channels, and the current is usually converted to a voltage by a trans-impedance amplifier for measurement with an analog-to-digital converter. The chemical strips have to be used externally and temperature correction has to be implemented for accurate measurement.
Figure 5: Block diagram of glucose monitor
Respiratory measurement
Respiratory rate is measured using a device known as a spirometer which measures the volume and speed of air that is inhaled and exhaled by the lungs. A spirometer provides a first-level diagnostic test for some pulmonary diseases.
Spirometers typically use turbine transducers or pressure sensors to measure the respiratory measurement, Figure 6. Turbine encoders measure the rate of flow based on the number of rotations which in-turn depends on the airflow rate and volume.
Figure 6: Blo
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kinnar
2/28/2011 5:17 AM EST
It is really really very much required to have some iPhone kind of versatile device and platform for portable medical devices where functions of many devices can merged into one device and that too that device will be affordable upto an extent that it can be sold in every corner of the world, improving the local medical needs.
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prabhakar_deosthali
2/28/2011 7:07 AM EST
Such medical devices will be more appropriate for the developing world countries where the pathological laboratories are not too many and the cost of pathological analysis is very high. With affordable portable devices the people can do the routine health parameter checks on their own at much lower cost .
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agk
2/28/2011 10:50 AM EST
In a nut shell Cypress engineer's said about a home based basic patient monitoring system could be usefull to critically unstable healthy people. It is sure that Cypress PSoC's can be used efficienty in these applications.More information on these applications are available at Cypress website.
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Dr DSP
2/28/2011 5:03 PM EST
This is a good survey article with lots of high-level details. Look at some of the MCU guys websites for more detailed applications- even with code!
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