Think about a movie you have not seen. Now imagine that someone gave you one frame from the millions that make it up and based on that single photo asked you to describe the plot of the entire movie. Difficult, right? That’s akin to what physicians have to do every day when they see patients for infrequent office visits during which they collect and rely upon acute data.
One of the most powerful trends in medicine is the increasing capability of collecting patient data outside of the doctor’s office, or in the ambulatory setting. Rather than taking discrete snapshots of health indicators such as blood pressure – which are spaced out because of inter-appointment wait times – biometric devices empower the patient to continuously and passively record his or her own data for the care team to use.
CareFusion announced today one such biometric electroencephalogram (EEG) device to record the faint electrical signals in the brain. It’s called the Nicolet (pronounced “Nick-oh-ley”) EEG Wireless Amplifier, and according to the press release, it:
… consolidates many clinical and research features into a single, portable unit for pediatrics and adults to aid clinicians in their diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy, brain trauma, stroke, brain tumors, sleep dysfunction and clinical research. Real-time data from the amplifier can be transferred wirelessly or in tethered mode and stored in the product’s on-board memory allowing for continuous recording when patients are out of range of a monitoring computer. This device is ideally suited for hospitals, clinics, emergency vehicles and in-home ambulatory settings….
“Wireless acquisition of EEG data gives patients admitted to the epilepsy monitoring unit greater freedom and comfort without risking loss of critical data due to disconnection of the amplifier,” said Chad Carlson, M.D., assistant professor of neurology at the New York University Langone Medical Center Comprehensive Epilepsy Center. “The ability to record up to 64 channels of EEG data at up to 12 kHz should allow for further advances in clinical EEG analysis and interpretation.”
For more information, please feel free to visit the CareFusion website or watch the video below:
Press release: CareFusion Launches Wireless Diagnostic and Monitoring Neurological Device
Product page: Nicolet EEG Wireless Amplifier…
Flashback: Smartphone EEG Seeks to Bring Brain Scanning to the Hom
