Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A pulse oximeter probe applied to a person's finger. A pulse oximeter is a medical device that indirectly monitors the oxygen saturation of a patient's blood (as opposed to measuring oxygen saturation directly through a blood sample) and changes in blood volume in the skin, producing a photoplethysmogram that may be further processed into other measurements. [4]
Vital signs (also known as vitals) are a group of the four to six most crucial medical signs that indicate the status of the body's vital (life-sustaining) functions. These measurements are taken to help assess the general physical health of a person, give clues to possible diseases, and show progress toward recovery.
The functional oxygen saturation measured by this procedure is the basis for calibrating pulse oximeters. Pulse oximeters cannot be calibrated using physical procedures, but only by directly comparing the reported measurements and the parallel arterial oxygen saturation measured by hemoximetry in a group of healthy subjects. [citation needed]
The pulse oximeter is a small device that clips to the body (typically a finger, an earlobe or an infant's foot) and displays its reading, or transfers it to another device. Oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin differ in absorption of light of different wavelengths.
A minimum systolic value can be roughly estimated by palpation, most often used in emergency situations, but should be used with caution. [10] It has been estimated that, using 50% percentiles, carotid, femoral and radial pulses are present in patients with a systolic blood pressure > 70 mmHg, carotid and femoral pulses alone in patients with systolic blood pressure of > 50 mmHg, and only a ...
Measuring the dissolved oxygen through a multi-parameter photometer Oxygen saturation (symbol S O 2 ) is a relative measure of the concentration of oxygen that is dissolved or carried in a given medium as a proportion of the maximal concentration that can be dissolved in that medium at the given temperature.
Capnography measures the elimination of CO 2 which may be of greater clinical usefulness than oxygenation status. [4] During the normal cycle of respiration, a single breath can be divided into two phases: inspiration and expiration. At the beginning of inspiration, the lungs expand and CO 2 free gasses fill the lungs.
If the pulse oximeter is attached without compressing the skin, a pressure pulse can also be seen from the venous plexus, as a small secondary peak. The change in volume caused by the pressure pulse is detected by illuminating the skin with the light from a light-emitting diode (LED) and then measuring the amount of light either transmitted or ...