Clinical Data, Inc.

Israel M Stein

Ronald T Peterson

An electrode belt made up of a strip of pile-backed foam on which a sheet of conductive silicone rubber is mounted by a snapped together fastener which clamps the sheet to the belt and compresses the sheet to form a suction cup when the belt is applied against the skin of the patient, especially when coated with conductive gel or water. The snap fastener provides means for convenient connection to the electrode leads for an apnea detector, an electro-cardiograph or a recorder for pneumogram or cardiogram signals which are transmitted through the conductive sheet and the fastener to the leads.

Electrode belt

Long-term blood pressure measuring apparatus, particularly adapted for ambulatory blood pressure monitoring where the subject can be engaged in normal activities while blood pressure is being measured and to be worn by the subject whose blood pressure is to be measured uses an inflatable cuff, a pump for inflating the cuff, valves for controlling the pressure in the cuff, sensors for the cuff pressure and for auscultatory (Korotkoff) sounds from the subject, a recorder for recording the sounds and blood pressure measurement cycle control circuits. The control circuits provide for blood pressure measurement cycles to recur repetitively at predetermined time intervals, for example every 30 or 60 minutes over a period of many hours, as well as when the subject manually activates the cycle control circuit to produce a blood pressure measurement cycle, but only when an automatic cycle occurs between successive manual cycles so as to limit the frequency of the blood pressure measurement so as to prevent harm to the subject and to conserve power needed for long-term operation of the apparatus. Circuits which control a valve use a linear ramp generator and triangular wave generator to provide a linear change in cuff pressure while the auscultatory sounds are recorded to enable accuracy of indication of the blood pressure from the recorded sounds.

Blood pressure measurement apparatus

A system is described for displaying several lines of electrocardiographic (ECG) signals on a cathode ray tube screen for observation, analysis and selection of those portions of the signals which indicate abnormalities of heart rhythm and cardiac events of interest to the diagnostician or trained observer. The ECG signals may be recorded at real time but are inputted to the system at much greater than real time. The system provides the display of the signal portions which were recorded consecutively, each on a separate vertically displayed line. In the system the greater than real time ECG signals are converted into consecutive bytes of data and transferred through a memory, which may be part of a computer, to a bulk storage unit such as a magnetic disc unit. The data from the disc is transferred to the display by way of the memory such that the display is continuously refreshed while the lines of ECG signals are under observation. Together with the ECG signals, other alphanumeric data, such as the time of day when the signals were recorded, patient name, heart rate, cardiac condition, and other pertinent information, may also be displayed simultaneously with the lines of ECG signals by the use of the memory and storage means to receive and hold such data. As consecutive sets of lines of the ECG signals are presented for display, sections of each line containing abnormalities and cardiac events of interest may be identified by an observer and transferred through the memory to the storage unit. Hard copy of the selected sections may be obtained as by a readout means such as a plotter which is responsive to data corresponding to the selected sections. The selected data may be applied to the readout means upon completion of the display of the entire long-term electrocardiographic recording and after operator review of the selected sections.

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Brookline, MA, United States of America

Israel M Stein