Description:
A Spinal Cord Monitor is used to measure
nerve conduction in a patient during spine
or neck surgery. Essentially, this
means checking for paralysis. The
traditional method was to pause the surgical
procedure, wake the anesthetized patient
sufficiently to move his or her extremities
(hands and/or feet), and then to
re-anesthetize and continue with the
surgery. With a Spinal Cord Monitor,
nerve conduction is determined by measuring
the brain's response to stimulus (electrical
shock) applied to the extremities. The
Spinal Cord Monitor allows continual testing
during the surgical procedure without ever
having to wake the patient. If the
response becomes significantly depressed
during the operation (i.e. paralysis occurs),
the surgeon is notified immediately and can
attempt to correct the problem. If the
purpose of the surgery is to correct an
existing paralysis, the Monitor can be used
to determine when that occurs, assisting the
surgeon in precisely determining the damaged
area and significantly reducing the length of
the surgery.
Employed by:
Saint Luke's Hospital
Operating System:
DOS
Programming Languages:
C (Borland compiler) and 80286/80287
assembler (Turbo Assembler).
Hardware:
-
20 MHz 80286
IBM
PC
compatible with math coprocessor (later
changed to a slower but more reliable 16
MHz 80386).
-
128K
EGA
video adapter
-
Original
HP
Inkjet printer
-
CyberResearch
ISA
DAQ
(Data AcQuisition adapter)
Program Requirements:
-
Program
DAQ
to initiate patient stimulus.
-
Program
DAQ
to acquire the corresponding
data set (up to eight channels).
-
Display data on the monitor, up to eight
channels simultaneously.
-
Store the data on disk.
-
A single data set from a single channel
had to be initiated, acquired, displayed
and stored at a minimum rate of 20
Hz. (I achieved a rate in excess
of 40 Hz.)
-
Display the data graphically in a
printout (not at 20 Hz).
-
Allow the user to mark significant
points in each data set during or
after surgery. These marks became
part of the data set.
-
Computer-assisted point selection
(signal shape recognition).
-
Allow the user to compare data sets on
screen from different times in the
surgery or from different surgical
procedures.
