A System for Monitoring Pressures and Spinal Curvature in Spinally Injured People Immobilised on a Spinal Raft
|
Title | A System for Monitoring Pressures and Spinal Curvature in Spinally Injured People Immobilised on a Spinal Raft |
Authors | |
Abstract | We present a system designed to study the pressure at various "hot spot" on the back of the body and the deformation of the spine experienced by a patient when strapped to a spinal board, and the potential alleviation of both by the addition of an inflatable "spinal raft" (or other similar devices). In measuring pressure we devised a system of air-filled sacks interfaced with a PC. Each sack, placed under a particular key point on the body, is inflated until its faces just begin to separate and a switch thereby opens. The pressure reading is then captured and displayed by the computer. Seeking a noninvasive method of measuring the curvature of the vertebral columm, we discovered that we could use a magnetometer to measure the vertical displacement of magnetically-tagged verbrae from a fixed horizontal plane. The results of our study will be employed by an independent body to determine the metrits or demerit of the spinal raft. |
Publisher | Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science |
Date | 2011-07-07 |
Source | Advances in Electrical and Electronic Engineering Vol 3, No 2 (2004): June |
Rights | Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the works authorship and initial publication in this journal.Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journals published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access). |