Measurements and observations of the patient that have to be continuous or repeated like life support equipment functioning and the purpose of guiding management decisions like when to make therapeutic interventions and their assessments, Patient Monitoring Devices are dependable. A Patient Monitoring Device provides physiologic input data that is used for controlling precisely connected life-support devices along with alerting caretakers to probably life-threatening events.
Classification
Monitoring is catalogued by the following interests:
Body temperature monitoring that is done with an adhesive pad that consists of thermoelectric transducer.
Cardiac monitoring is associated with unceasing electrocardiography relating to the cardiac rhythm of a patient. A monitor that is small worn by an itinerant patient, for this function is termed as a Holter Monitor. Cardiac Monitoring may also cover cardiac output monitoring through a protruding Swan-Ganz catheter.
Blood glucose monitoring: The process of testing the concentration of glucose in the blood is known as Blood Glucose Monitoring. The skin of the fingertip is pierced in order to draw a droplet of blood, and then the blood is applied to a test-strip which is chemically active and used to determine the glucose level in a patient’s body. This is notably important in diabetes management. This test is generally known as capillary blood glucose.
Hemodynamic monitoring monitors the blood flow and blood pressure inside the circulatory system. The two ways to monitor blood pressure is:
Noninvasively via inflatable blood pressure cuff
Invasively by inserting blood pressure transducer assembly
Respiratory Monitoring as follows:
1. Capnography –EtCO2 or end-tidal carbon dioxide concentration which also includes CO2 measurements. When the rate of respiratory is monitored in a way as such is it called airway respiratory rate or AWRR.
2. Pulse oximetry –known as SpO2 and measured using a finger cuff which includes measurement of the saturated percentage of oxygen in the blood of the patient’s body.
3. Respiratory rate that is monitored via ECG channel or a thoracic transducer belt.
The sensors that medical monitors include are mechanical sensors and biosensors.
Display device
LCD,CRT or LED screen are used as data channels along the time axis to help display physiological data on continuous basis, they may be followed by the numerical readouts given by the computed parameters such as average values, maximum and minimum values, pulse and respiratory frequencies etc. Unlike the old analog patient displays that used to be associated with oscilloscopes and only had a single channel that was reserved for electrocardiography monitoring, digital signal processing (DSP) iscommonly used in the modern medical time which has the convenience of multi-parameter displays that can track various important signs at one time, portability and miniaturization.