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Up to Blog Posts in Medical Device Design & Equipment Development

Medical Device Design & Equipment Development

2 Posts tagged with the sp:freescale tag
squadMCU
0

By Sujata Neidig

 

Wow! I can’t believe it’s 2012. Seems like just yesterday that  everyone was talking about Y2K. But, here we are, another year gone by  and another year to look forward to. For some, this is a time to make  new resolutions. For me, I will continue to focus on the things that I  am thankful for and that I feel are important for me and my family –  fitness and health. As I get older, I can’t take these for granted  anymore and being in the high tech industry means I’m always interested  in gadgets that help enable my efforts.

 

For fitness, cool gadgets like a heart rate monitor helped me achieve  my goal of running my first half marathon when I turned 40 (in fact,  I’ve now completed three and plan on doing more). At first, the heart  rate monitor was just a cool gadget, but I quickly realized how big of a  motivator it was for me when I started monitoring, tracking and  collecting all of my data, from my heart rate to my pace. So, this  gadget is helping me stay healthy and young so I can keep up with my  kids, take care of my family and hopefully encourage them to always be  active.

 

For health, I have blogged about dealing with Alzheimer’s as a caregiver for my father-in-law over a decade ago. I am now dealing with this  devastating disease again since my mother-in-law was officially  diagnosed with it last summer. I’ve also realized just how many people  this disease affects as several of my friends have loved ones with  Alzheimer’s. Although there is not a cure, it’s one of the many diseases  that I believe telehealth systems can help with.

 

3MillionLives: Telehealth Systems Impact

 

Other major diseases that affect an even larger population are diabetes and heart diseases. Recently, the results of a major study conducted in UK showed just how significant of an impact telehealth systems can have –  pretty impressive reductions in patient deaths (45%), emergency visits  (15%), emergency admissions (20%), elective admissions (14%), bed days  (14%) and tariff costs (8%). These results show that telehealth has a  beneficial impact on healthcare costs which is extremely important, but  it also shows that these types of systems help provide better care to  those struggling with health issues.

 

What advances do you envision for 2012? This article gives some high tech health ideas for 2012,  from mobile access to data and remote care to artificial intelligence  and 3D printing for medicine. I can see several of these help me in my  fitness and health efforts, such as social health networks. (All right, I  am intrigued by a wireless weight scale but not sure I’d want it to  share that data with my Facebook friends. :-) )

Happy (and Healthy) New Year!

90 Views 0 Comments Permalink Tags: sp:freescale, health, gadgets, heart, fitness, telehealth, rate_monitor
Cuauh Medina
1

One of the first thoughts that come to our minds when we hear the words “Pulse Oximeter” is a person lying in a hospital bed wearing a finger sensor and being monitored by a nurse or a doctor. A pulse oximeter is a device capable of measuring oxygen saturation in arterial blood, and in some models pulse rate as well. It is true, that one of the most relevant application fields for a pulse oximeter lies in the hospital area as being a part of important medical devices, like vital signs monitors and anesthesia units. However, pulse oximeters can also help keep you away from the hospital.

 

An excellent example of how a Pulse Oximeter can save lives outside the operating room is in aeronautics. In 2003 a PA-28R-200 crashed after a pilot started to make erratic decisions due to hypoxia caused by altitude. At 14,000 feet, blood oxygen saturation falls to 85% (normal values are 95-99%) causing judgment, memory, and thought degradation. The pilot flew above 14,000 feet for 1 hour 49 minutes without supplementary oxygen or a blood oxygen saturation monitor.

 

Oxygen saturation monitoring has also helped mountain climbers to determine the appropriate altitude to start using their oxygen tanks and avoid “altitude sickness” which is usually over 8,000 feet. Some athletes also use a pulse oximeter for monitoring their oxygen saturation and pulsations per minute while exercising.

 

As you can see, pulse oximeters like other medical devices, have a large application field outside the hospital and more can be accomplished when these devices become portable. Freescale is aware of this, and they have developed the MED-SPO2. This is a pulse oximeter reference design as an Analog Front End (AFE) development board.

 

The MED-SPO2 is designed to be used together with the Freescale Tower System, compatible with the Tower system development boards (TWR-S08MM128 for 8-bits, TWR-MCF51MM256 and TWR-K53N512 for 32-bits portfolios) enables the developer to create a fast and low-cost solution for pulse oximeter applications. The MED-SPO2 is reduced in size and components, decreases design time for engineers.

 

Making pulse oximeter devices as portable as possible with highly integrated hardware solutions like Freescale medical oriented microcontrollers, improves the way in which people integrate these solutions in their daily lives, even outside the operating room.

 

So next time you see a pulse oximeter, think in all the possible solutions that it can bring not only in the hospital area, but also in your daily life. Portable medical devices help people to make their lives safer and easier.

594 Views 1 Comments Permalink Tags: sp:freescale, in:medical, medical, mcu, portable, tower, tower_system, spo2, pulseoximer, pulse_oximeter