ECG equipment is vital for diagnosis of cardiac problems. However, such equipment come from the rich Western countries at a huge cost in both procurement and maintenance, and therefore cannot offer services to a large population in the Third World countries. The only solution is to design and develop such equipment in individual countries by developing local expertise. With three decades of experience, the Dhaka University group has taken a step towards developing prototypes of ECG equipment for dissemination to the healthcare service providers. This paper presents the detailed design of an PC based ECG equipment where optimized choice of components and of the design have been made keeping the cost and maintenance in view, but not sacrificing the quality, and incorporating necessary safety features to protect the patient from known hazards. Both the hardware and the software have been developed locally and are detailed in this paper. Outputs obtained from human subjects are shown which are of reasonable good quality, and have been verified using standard ECG equipment. The PC based ECG system will allow digital post processing of signals for improved diagnosis through software. Besides, this can also become part of a nationwide telemedicine system. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bjmp.v4i1.14701 Bangladesh Journal of Medical Physics Vol.4 No.1 2011 115-125
ECG is very important for diagnosis of cardiac disorders but most ECG equipment come from developed countries with very costly procurement and maintenance. Therefore, unless the technology is developed indigenously, common people in countries like Bangladesh will not get the benefits of modern healthcare technology. With the advent of personal computers (PC) at low cost, a PC based ECG equipment is also worth developing since many people already own a PC, thereby reducing the overall cost. With this view a PC based ECG equipment was designed and developed from the basics. An attempt was made to utilize maximum components and spares available in the local market. The main unit is based on a low cost but quality instrumentation amplifier IC with high common mode rejection ratio. Active filters were designed using common operational amplifier ICs. Right leg drive circuitry to reduce 50Hz noise of mains ac was kept as an option. Analog signal switching circuitry was used to obtain 12 Lead configurations, which were programme controlled, through graphical user interface. To achieve electrical isolation between patient and the mains ac, an analogue optical isolation circuit was designed and developed. Finally the analogue signal was converted to digital data and interfaced to a personal computer through its USB port using a microcontroller. The required power is obtained by USB port 5V supply. A medical grade isolated dc to dc converter was designed to power the patient side circuitry. Proper patient safety issues were followed in the design. Calibration was performed to make the equipment as accurate as possible. Outputs from several subjects were compared with that of reliable commercial equipment and were found to be satisfactory by cardiac experts.
Telemedicine offers a solution for providing expert medical care to rural people in the Third World. However, indigenous development of necessary equipment is essential for affordability to a large number of centres in the country and for sustained service. The present work reports indigenous development of five items of equipment and necessary software for a microcomputer based telemedicine system in Bangladesh rural health complexes established by the Government. The items are: Stethoscope, X-ray viewbox, Microscope, 12 lead diagnostic ECG and Colposcope, and all data can be sent in real time. If the system succeeds it will be a model for the Third World countries.
A portable battery powered miniature ECG monitor with built in graphic display has been developed at low cost which can be used in rural areas, for on site patient service. It involves an analogue electronics circuit and a programmable digital circuit in the form of a Microcontroller unit (MCU). The MCU sends necessary data to an LCD graphic display screen having 128 x 64 pixels and a built-in controller. The data acquisition, processing and plotting of graphs on the screen in real time are performed through a software developed using C language. The hardware was mounted in a compact box with integrated battery. Field trial and further improvement will be needed before it can be given out to users. A little modification will make it suitable for continuous ambulatory monitoring, with data stored in an SDRAM, which can later be read into a PC and analysed by a doctor. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bjmp.v4i1.14702 Bangladesh Journal of Medical Physics Vol.4 No.1 2011 127-134
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