Electro-impedance Tomography Device for Local Intratidal Redistribution Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current electroimpedance tomography devices struggle to visually detect and quantify local intratidal redistributions of ventilation, leading to potential overlooks of temporal inhomogeneities and lack of a global redistribution measure.
Innovation Solution
The control and evaluation unit adapts a straight line to the local sequence of relative impedance changes, determines its zero point, and assigns a ventilation variable to display each pixel's impedance change as a scalar measure, enabling gray or color coding to represent local impedance changes relative to global ventilation, thereby facilitating the visualization of local intratidal redistributions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If conventional EIT devices record and display impedance distribution matrices over time, then temporal evolution of impedance distribution can be visualized, but local intratidal redistributions cannot be rapidly detected and quantified
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies color coding to represent the ventilation variable values in the displayed matrix. Different colors indicate different patterns of local impedance changes relative to global ventilation, enabling rapid visual detection of intratidal redistributions. The color scale transforms complex impedance data into intuitive visual information that can be immediately interpreted by clinicians.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a new ventilation variable that quantifies local impedance changes relative to global ventilation. This parameter transformation converts raw impedance data into a meaningful metric that directly reflects intratidal redistribution patterns, enabling both visual detection and quantitative analysis of ventilation heterogeneity.
2Measurement precision
If EIT devices provide spatially resolved ventilation measurements, then regional lung ventilation can be monitored, but temporal inhomogeneities during the breath cycle are overlooked
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the ventilation measurement into spatial components (individual pixels in the matrix) and temporal components (intratidal variations). By analyzing impedance changes at each spatial location relative to the global breath cycle, the method simultaneously preserves spatial resolution and reveals temporal inhomogeneities that would be masked in bulk measurements.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent dynamically evaluates impedance changes throughout the breath cycle by comparing local impedance variations at each time point to the global ventilation pattern. This dynamic approach captures temporal inhomogeneities by continuously assessing how each region's ventilation evolves relative to the overall breath, rather than providing only static end-point measurements.
3Productivity
If EIT devices monitor regional lung ventilation with multiple matrices per second, then bedside monitoring is enabled, but a global redistribution measure is lacking
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a ventilation variable that serves multiple functions simultaneously: it provides visual detection of local redistributions through color coding, enables quantitative assessment of intratidal heterogeneity, and offers a global measure of redistribution when aggregated across all pixels. This multi-functional parameter addresses several information needs with a single measurement approach.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach allows for the rapid visual detection of local intratidal redistributions and provides a scalar measure for each pixel, helping clinicians determine optimal ventilator settings, such as PEEP values, by indicating when alveoli open or close, thus improving ventilator operation.
Implementation Method 1
a plurality of electrodes which can be attached around the thorax of a patient, a control and evaluation unit that is configured by programming to supply at least one electrode pair as a feed electrode pair with an alternating current or with an alternating voltage, to record a voltage signal or current signal as a measurement signal
Implementation Method 2
to reconstruct a matrix of image elements from the measurement signals using a reconstruction algorithm, which represents the distribution of the impedance changes in the electrode plane
Data Source
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AI summary
The electrical impedance tomography-apparatus has multiple electrodes (4) which are attached around the chest of a patient, and a control- and evaluating unit which is set to provide a pair of electrodes as applied pair of electrodes with an alternating current or with an alternating voltage. The control- and evaluating unit is provided to determine a time series of the global ventilation course from the sequence of reconstructed matrices as a time series of the average impedance change or as a time series of a measured ventilation volume. An independent claim is included for a method for receiving a sequence of electrical impedance tomography-images of a cross-sectional plane of the chest of a patient by the electrodes.