I Kropyvnytskyy | PubMed Health

PubMed2001

A computer system for continuous long-term recording, processing, and analysis of physiological data of brain injured patients in ICU settings.

The objective of this project was to assemble and test a computer-based system for continuous long-term physiological data acquisition. The system would be used to study short-term (heart rate variability) and long-term (circadian rhythms) dynamics of physiological parameters in severely brain injured patients in ICU settings. A system has been built using open-source software and the Linux operating system as the platform. The system consists of three main parts: data acquisition, processing and analysis. The system was tested in ICU and experimental settings for long periods of time (up to 10 days of non-stop recording). The system appeared to function properly and accurately. Samples of the data according to the stages of acquisition-analysis process are presented in the paper. Avenues for the system use and development are discussed.

Brain Injuries↗

PubMed2001

Circadian rhythm of temperature in head injury.

It has been shown in a previous study that head injured patients appear to have a circadian rhythm of their body functions. This needed to be confirmed using additional data, better collection methods and analysis. Additional goals were to develop a method of detrending of physiological time series in order to improve rhythm detection when it may be hidden behind a low frequency trend and the creation of a computer system for data acquisition and analysis. The temperature data of 10 head injured patients was studied using the Iterative Cosinor method. In one case, prior to the Cosinor method, detrending of the data was used using a specially designed polynomial fitting technique. The Iterative Cosinor method showed circadian rhythms in nine out of 10 patients. After detrending, a rhythm was found in the data of the 10th patient as well. The periods of the rhythm were around, but were not equal to, 24 hours. The results show that comatose head injured patients have a circadian rhythm of their core temperature. The detection of a circadian rhythm may, in some cases, be improved by using a detrending technique. The deviation of the rhythm period from 24 hours suggests that the rhythms found in these patients are free-running, meaning that head injured patients are not synchronized with their surroundings.

Adolescent↗