Koninklijke Philips Corporation N.v.

Markus Silvester Wohlschlager

Hansjoerg Geywitz

Lars Schmitt

Jakob Van De Laar

Christoph Florian Franck

Winfried Peter Kaiser

Daniel Gal

Alexander Franciscus Kolen

Alexander Dubielczyk

Haris Duric

Paul Hamelmann

Albrecht Reinhard Kinzkofer

Manuel Stephan

Andre Bigalke

Harry Beitinger

Stefan Reuter

Stefan Jaeschke

A device and method for deriving and displaying a time-averaged fetal heart rate signal in conjunction with microvariability information relating to variation in the beat-to-beat heart rate signal within the different time-averaging epochs or windows. Supplementary information is displayed, for example temporally aligned or registered with the time-average heart rate signal, which is indicative of variation information for the signal during averaging windows of the time-averaged signal.

Processing unit and method for use in fetal monitoring

A method and communications module for recommending in what manner or mode a sensor and communications module of a subject monitoring system should communicate. A determination is made as to whether or not more than a predetermined number of wireless channels have a noise level below a certain threshold. If a positive determination is made, a wireless communication mode is recommended. If a negative determination is made, a wireless communication mode is not recommended.

Recommending whether a subject monitoring system uses a wireless communication mode

A computing device arrangement () for receiving fetal monitoring data from a fetal monitoring system is disclosed. The computing device arrangement comprises a display device () arranged to display the fetal monitoring data, a touchscreen device () and a processor arrangement () communicatively coupled to the display device and the touchscreen device. The processor arrangement is arranged to receive the fetal monitoring data from the fetal monitoring system, control the display device to display the fetal monitoring data, receive a freeform input () in a region of the touchscreen device from the touchscreen device; modify the fetal monitoring data by annotating a displayed region () of the fetal monitoring data with the freeform input, said displayed region corresponding to the region of the touchscreen device; and generate an output of the modified fetal monitoring data for storage in a data storage device (). Also disclosed are a fetal monitoring system including such a computing device arrangement and a method of generating freeform annotations with such a computing device arrangement.

Annotating fetal monitoring data

There is provided a device () for placement on the abdomen () of a subject to measure uterine contractions of the subject and a fetal heart rate. The device () comprises a rigid base () for placement on the abdomen () of the subject and a cover () configured to connect to the rigid base (). The cover () comprises a flexible portion moveable in response to uterine contractions of the subject. The device () further comprises a fetal heart rate sensor () mounted on the rigid base () and configured to measure the fetal heart rate. The device () also comprises a uterine contractions sensor () located within the device () and configured to measure the uterine contractions of the subject.

Device for measuring uterine contractions and fetal heart rate

The present invention is directed to a method for health monitoring using one or more sensors comprising first measuring () a body composition via one or more sensors. The measured body composition is then classified () into one of a plurality of categories. An at least one setting to be used for the health monitoring is adjusted () based on the classified body composition. Then, the health monitoring is performed () using the adjusted at least one health monitoring setting, wherein at least one of the sensors used to measure the body composition may also be used to perform the health monitoring.

Fat layer dependent sensor adaptation

The present disclosure relates to apparatuses and a method for wireless health monitoring comprising dynamically adjusting sound data compression level and/or transmission bandwidth of transmission between a mobile transmitter and a receiver. In some embodiments, a method for wireless health monitoring may include calculating () a distance between a mobile transmitter () and a receiver (). A data compression () level for compressing a signal, e.g., a sound signal, from the transmitter may be determined out of a plurality of data compression levels based on the distance between the transmitter and the receiver. A transmission bandwidth may then be determined () based at least in part on the determined data compression level. The compressed signal may be transmitted () using the determined transmission bandwidth.

Method for wireless data transmission range extension

A method for monitoring fetal health. The method of the present disclosure comprises transmitting () an ultrasound signal from an at least one transducer element in an array towards a maternal abdomen. An at least one ultrasonic echo signal corresponding to an at least one depth of the maternal abdomen is then received () by the at least one transducer element. The at least one Doppler signal is determined after the echo is received by the at least one transducer element is then processed () in an at least one channel. A multidimensional map is then generated () from the processed Doppler signal. A feedback () to reposition the at least one transducer element is then provided when the fetal heart is determined to lie outside an ultrasound beam volume.

Positioning support and fetal heart rate registration support for CTG ultrasound transducers

The invention relates to determining a fetal heart rate from an ultrasonic Doppler echo signal, which comprises at least two channels, including a first channel obtained for a first depth range and a second channel obtained for a second depth range. A first heart rate is determined from the first channel () and a second heart rate is determined from the second channel (). External information on the fetal heart rate and/or the maternal heart rate, extracted from an independent source () such as an ECG, is used to select one of the first heart rate and the second heart rate as the fetal heart rate to be determined. A preferred embodiment provides for elimination of double counting heart rates by cutting out unwanted signal contributions. The disclosure further provides for an adaptive signal processing and data acquisition controlled by patient related data.

Device and method for determining fetal heart rate

The present disclosure relates to a maternal monitoring transducer (), comprising a housing (), a substrate board (), particularly a PCB (), disposed in the housing () and comprising control components (), and a displacement measurement arrangement () comprising a displacement-sensitive structure () that is arranged to detect deformations of a deflectable measurement section () of the substrate board (), wherein the maternal monitoring transducer () supplies a signal that is representative of maternal motion. The disclosure further relates to a method of operating a maternal monitoring transducer ().

Maternal monitoring transducer and operating method

The invention relates to determining a fetal heart rate from an ultrasonic Doppler echo signal. Rather than extracting the Doppler signal from the carrier signal using synchronous demodulation, quadrature demodulation is used, which allows to distinguish between systolic and diastolic movements. This velocity direction can be used to cut out unwanted parts of the signal (systolic or diastolic heart activity), thus eliminating double counting heart rates. In particular, a binary sign signal (') may be used to cut out unwanted signal episodes, resulting in a processed reference signal (&#x2032;) having only the signal parts of one heart activity. Another aspect relates to determining a first and a second heart rate from at least two channels having a different depth range, and selecting one of the first and second heart rate based on external information of the fetal or maternal heart rate.

The present invention relates to a pregnancy monitoring system, the system comprising a fetal monitoring transducer () arranged to detect fetal medical condition information; and a control device () comprising a motion assessment unit () and a signal output unit (); wherein the fetal monitoring transducer () is arranged to detect fetal movement indicative information, wherein the motion assessment unit () is arranged to process fetal movement grading information, in addition to the fetal movement indicative information, wherein the signal output unit () is arranged to simultaneously output a fetal condition signal, particularly a fetal heart rate signal, and an augmented fetal movement signal based on the fetal movement indicative information and the fetal movement grading information, wherein a characteristic property of the original fetal movement information is still present in the augmented fetal movement signal. The disclosure further relates to a corresponding pregnancy monitoring method.

Pregnancy monitoring system and method

The present invention relates to a pregnancy monitoring system () and to a method for detecting medical condition information from a pregnant subject of interest (). The system () comprises a fetal monitoring transducer () that detects fetal medical condition information, a first motion sensor unit () associated with the fetal monitoring transducer (), the first motion sensor unit () comprising at least one first motion sensor (), a second motion sensor unit () comprising at least one second motion sensor (), and a control device () comprising an evaluation unit () that determines relative motion between the first motion sensor unit () and the second motion sensor unit (), wherein the control device () selectively permits, in an enablement mode, processing of the detected fetal medical condition information when a level of relative motion between the first motion sensor unit () and the second motion sensor unit () indicates stable measurement conditions, and wherein the control device () selectively prevents, in a suppression mode, processing of the detected fetal medical condition information when the level of relative motion between the first motion sensor unit () and the second motion sensor unit () indicates unstable measurement conditions.

The invention relates to a communication device () for wirelessly communicating with a sensor (). The communication device () comprises a receiver for receiving signals, an amplifier for amplifying the received signals, a transmitter for transmitting signals, and a controller. The controller is operable in a first mode in which signal strength values are determined over time, which are indicative of a strength of an amplified received signal, and in a second mode in which signal transmission and reception are controlled based on the determined signal strength values. The determined signal strength values can be indicative of, for instance, a saturation of the amplifier caused by a transmission operation of another, neighboring communication device such that, by considering the determined signal strength values, the transmission carried out by the communication device () can be synchronized with the corresponding operation of the neighboring communication device. This can lead to reduced disturbances.

Communication device for wirelessly communicating with a sensor

The invention relates to a method for controlling an ultrasound system comprising at least two ultrasound sensor units using gestures. The method comprises: detecting a gesture on a first ultrasound sensor unit; matching the detected gesture to one of the plurality of gestures in the gestures database; reading the assigned at least one system function in the gesture database related to the detected gesture; and activating the at least one system function. At least one system function includes switching a sound source from a second ultrasound sensor unit to said first ultrasound sensor unit and wherein the gesture assigned to this system function comprises a double-tap on the surface of the first ultrasound sensor unit. Further, the invention relates to a system for carrying out the method.

Operation control of wireless sensors

A method of recognizing at least one moving anatomical structure using ultrasound data that operates by receiving ultrasound data (). The ultrasound data comprises Doppler shift information which provides information descriptive of the velocity of at least one anatomical structure. The ultrasound data is first divided into a series of time frames (). A classification is then assigned to each of the time frames using the Doppler shift information (). The at least one anatomical structure is then recognized by using the classification of each time frame (). This is possible, because different anatomical structures produce different patterns in the Doppler shift information.

Growing community of inventors

Sindelfingen, Germany

Markus Silvester Wohlschlager