Monitoring of small internal bleeding

Most people may loose 1000-1500 ml blood before remarkable symptoms or change in blood pressure or heart rate. Therefore, also a dangerous internal bleeding after a surgical operation or accident may stay unnoticed before a risk for death of the patient. To improve the detection of internal bleeding, we at BIOPOTENTIAL, have developed an easy and noninvasive method and apparatus for monitoring, if the patients blood volume is above the safe value of 90 % of the total blood volume.

The monitoring is performed by measuring the magnitude of the ECG T wave, wich is dependent on blood volume. If the magnitude of the T wave decreases to 90 % of the value at the start of monitoring, an alert will be given allowing the personnel of the recovery room to take corrective action on time. The method has been confirmed in a pilott study and patented in US and Finland. A more comprehensive study in cooperation with University of Eastern Finland is in preparation.