Medical Sensors - Calling for help!

[logictom]

Hey, this is a calling for help from anyone in the know or better googling skills that myself!
I will be starting a project soon based around the idea of a patient home monitoring system where the data is transmitted back to their GP.
I'm running into a brick wall trying to find sensors to use to collect data, there seems to be a lot available as consumer electronics, over the shelf in the pharmacy sort of stuff but I am looking for sensors in the raw form.
Ideally they would have a digital communication interface (spi,i2c,serial etc) but I am also looking for others which will require more hardware, I'm looking for proven sensors as I'm not looking into designing sensors from scratch as time won't allow this.

If anyone can point me to any manufactures/suppliers or knows any good sites where I might find information like this I would be extremely grateful.
Thanks.

[saturation]

http://www.allsensors.com/medicalapps.htm#oxygenando2therapy

http://www.delsys.com/Products/Products.html

What are you trying to capture, pressure, electrical, flow, gas movement?

[TheWelly888]

Again what are you trying to capture? If you can tell me the I may be able to make suggestions.

[logictom]

Thanks for the replies. I've requested a quote from Delsys for some of their sensors.
To be honest I'm not sure what sensors as I don't know much in the way of medical electronics yet. I'm trying to arrange a chat with some one in the medical department/local GP to give me a better idea what might be useful to monitor in the home.
I think I'm going to have two parts to the system, a wearable part which will monitor things which need constant observation like heart rate and then a stationary part which will have sensors for things like blood pressure.
The project is purely to build a functional system and it isn't something that would be used in the medical field or produced, if it was ever taken any further that would always be a plus.

So I'm literally trying to find all sorts of sensors to see what would be feasible to implement as the project is still in the feasibility phase.

[saturation]

Great.  Other options are veterinary grade or biological or farm grade; whichever is cheaper.

Medical grade can be expensive as if intended to be used by real people, transducers often have to be verifiably sterile, even if just for use on the skin; sterilizing it ups the cost.

For home monitoring, there are also simpler things to build, many are also re-purposed COTS gear:

non-contact IR thermal sensor to watch for fever or hypothermia, or if kitchen burners are left on unattended

gas sensors to check if gas is turned off or if the pilot light blows

motion sensors [ to set alarms when Alzheimer patients wake up in the middle in the night and decide to go anywhere]

web cams, used to visually observe elderly or disabled patients, usually on -demand when an alarm goes off

There are Chinese grade EKG monitors that are cheap and meant for individual use, rarely used in the West, but very practical for the niche its fills: you can then send screen caps jpgs or video mpegs to the doc for analysis:



The patient just grasps the thing, puts their finger on the metal strip on the side of the device and then the tracing is stored in memory.

[Lawsen]

If you surf the Apple I Pod web site at the Apple store.  There is a heart and blood pressure monitor that interfaces with the I Pod Nano or Nike device.  That is as close as a non medical professional can get to monitoring the individual's heart.  Verneir Software in Oregon, U.S.A.  has an interesting physiology package.

http://www.vernier.com/physiology/

Lawsen

[logictom]

Thanks for the info. I was unaware of the blood pressure monitor for the iPhone.

I had not thought of looking in the other markets you mention and it will be a great cost cutter if I can locate some useful sensors.
I think it's a case of locating a number of sensors and putting together a system that will be both functional but also polish up as a finished project.

If anyone has any other links or suggestions I'm always open and in many cases, as above, just haven't thought about certain options or solutions.
Thanks again.

[TheWelly888]

There's a load of articles about how various medical equipment works for the benefit of those ( like me ) who work on them.

http://www.ebme.co.uk/arts/links/index.php?CID=2

Try reading a few of them to get an idea of how diverse medical equipment works.

[daedalus]

Hi Tom,

There are lots of data collection you can do that is not aimed at helping with specific conditions. Things such as tracking user activity, exercise, coordination, fitness, strength etc over a long period of time is medically relevant. This type of testing is traditionally hard to do due to the logistics of having lots of people visit a test center regularly. For my day job i develop software for a research project doing in home assessment of nutrition and physical activity. There are some details online if you're interested http://wiki.bath.ac.uk/display/nana/NANA

[logictom]

Thanks Welly, that link has helped clear up a few bits and has some useful info I didn't find elsewhere.

daedalus, that looks like an interesting project, is there a site/page with anymore in depth details, I can only find a brief overview.

Thanks

[daedalus]

Hi Tom,

Sorry but it appears that the main website for the project hasn't gone live yet. Here is an article about a similar project (that i have no connection to), which is doing patient health monitoring with an in-home touchscreen. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11837457. Our approach is similar but targetting nutrition and measures of frailty.

[mobbarley]

there are a lot of sensors that use bluetooth serial - this also means that your devices are very isolated from the person being monitored - and you probably won't violate any approvals / certifications they have:

Cardiac:
http://www.alivetec.com/products.htm

Pulse-ox:
http://www.nonin.com/PulseOximetry/Fingertip/Onyx9560

Glucose:
http://www.myglucohealth.net/

[mobbarley]

They are also very easy to prototype or develop for with a computer / cellphone.