Sunday, October 20, 2013

Basics About CMS Pulse Oximeters

By Madeline Pittman


CMS pulse oximeters are pieces of equipment used to perform pulse oximetry. This kind of oximetry is a non-invasive technique for monitoring the level of saturation of Oxygen gas in the body. This equipment was first invented by a physician called Glenn Allan Millikan in 1940s. This first device operated on two wavelengths and was placed on the ear. The two wavelengths were red and green filters.

This original make was improved later by some physician named Wood in 1949. Wood integrated a pressure capsule for constricting blood out of an ear to get nil setting in a bid to get absolute O2 saturation level. The current models function on the same principals like the original one. The functioning principal was however hard to implement because of unstable light sources and/or photocells.

Oximetry itself was initially developed in 1972 at Nihon Kohden by two bioengineers, Aoyagi and Kishi. These two utilized the ratio of infrared to red light absorption of pulsating constituents at measuring sites. Commercial distribution of oximeter happened in the year 1981 through a firm called Biox. By then, the device was majorly utilized in operating rooms and firms that produced it concentrated most of their advertising in the same direction.

Oximetry is a crucial noninvasive technique of determining the amount of oxygen in human body. It utilizes a pair of small LEDS, light emitting diodes, which face some photodiode through a translucent portion of the body. Examples of such translucent parts are fingertips, earlobes, and toe tips. One LED is red whereas the other is infrared. The red LED is usually 660 nm while the infrared LED is 940, 910, or 905 nm.

The rate of absorption of the two wavelengths differs between the oxygenated and deoxygenated forms of oxygen within the body. This difference in absorption speed can be utilized to estimate the ratio between deoxygenated and oxygenated blood O2. The observed signal changes over some period with every heartbeat because arterial blood veins contract and expand with each heartbeat. The monitor is capable of ignoring other tissues or nail make-ups by monitoring the changing portion of the absorption spectrum only.

By observing the varying absorption section alone, the blood oxygen monitor only displays the percentage of arterial hemoglobin in oxyhemoglobin configuration. Patients without COPD but with hypoxic drive issues have a reading that ranges between 95 and 99 percent. Those with hypoxic drive issues normally have values that range between 88 and 94 percent. Usually figures of 100 percent may suggest carbon monoxide poisoning.

An oximeter is helpful in a number of environments and applications where the oxygenation of an individual is unstable. Some of the main environments of application consist of intensive care units, hospital and ward settings, surgical rooms, cockpits in un-pressurized aircrafts, and recovery units. The drawback of these appliance is that it only measures the level of saturation of hemo-globin and not ventilation. Therefore it is not a complete estimation of respiratory adequacy.

CMS pulse oximeters are made in several varieties. Some are inexpensive costing a few dollars whereas others are very sophisticated and expensive. They may be purchased from any shop that stocks such pieces of equipment.




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