Brain Accoustic Monitor

[hertzvanrental]

I don't know if this has been posted before, so apologies if it has. Where I work there are talks of us trialling this new type of monitor to rapidly identify CVA patients and not only that but differentiate between a clot or a bleed so that we can fast track the patient, for e.g thrombolysis. Basically you have electrodes placed on specific areas of the head and one on the wrist and on the monitor you will see a waveform and depending on this wave form you can tell wether it is a clot or a bleed. It's all to to with the pulse or something like that. Then we would transmit the info to the recieving hospital for the Dr to look at and have the available response ready.But this will be a long time coming , i think, as there will need to a lot of education put in place , not only for us but also for the hospital staff. According to the papers our stroke care in the u.k ( in hospital ) is terrible. When i've taken patients in who are having a CVA, i don't remember anyone rushing the patient down to the CT scanner. What's it like over there?

[MedicRN]

I haven't heard of your device. It would be interesting to know the outcomes of the studies/evaluations.

At my facility (a certified Primary Stroke Care Center), EMS can call a 'Stroke Alert' based on CSS or LAPHSS. In a nutshell, on arrival, the patient is seen almost immediately by the ER MD to determine appropriateness for a Stroke Team alert. If appropriate, the protocol is initiated which includes a stat CT (within 10 minutes of protocol initiation) and evaluation by a Neuro ICU RN. Labs, PMHx and meds are all evaluated. If the evaluation is positive for a thrombic stroke, labs within parameters and within 3 hours (6 hours for some cases) of KNOWN onset, tPA in started and the patient is admitted to the Neuro Critical Care Unit.

[JPINFV]

I wonder if it's some sort of portable EEG machine. If so, I hope it's easier to set up then the one's used in hospitals. I'm currently doing undergraduate research on sensory gating in bipolar and schizophrenia patients and we only use 9 leads right now. Of them, only 4 of them are acually gathering useful data (CS, CZ, C3, and C4. The others measure baseline [ground] and blinks). I couldn't imagine setting it up on an actual patient and trouble shooting it (bad lead, bad ground, etc) in the field.

[Coheed1121]

From googleing this topic i found out some info but as to what it really is i found its patent and it explains it the best so far, http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6887199.html

It is supposed to be used in conjunction with a CT scan to confirm what the BAM is showing because it measures intracranial blood flow and pressure non-invasively. It is also supposed to be relativly compact and esy to set up.