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Design Team 03001 - Disuse Atrophy Prevention
Team Members: Angela Bell (PM), Mike Cauthen (Engineer), Phil Cira (APM), and Tommy Washington (Engineer).
Project Summary: Disuse atrophy is often associated with the casting of a patient after surgery. When a person has orthopedic surgery done he or she is often left in a cast and must go through vigorous physical training to obtain full use of his limb. This casting period can cause valuable time loss and the physical therapy may cause large expenditures in both money and time. The product being designed will integrate a removable orthopedic cast used on either an arm or leg with a stimulation system. The product will also use a bladder pressure system that will monitor the pressure inside the cast and adjust accordingly. The product is comparatively priced as traditional methods and is expected to reduce or even eliminate the time a patient may need to go through physical therapy for isometric exercises. There will also be a smother transition for a patient from being in a cast to being completely rehabilitated because the muscle will be stimulated during the casting period. Overall, the product would make the entire casting and rehabilitation process a positive, efficient, and cost effective method for addressing muscle atrophy due to prolonged casting.
Design Team 03002 - Sidecar Device for INRange Medication Delivery Unit(MDU)
Team Members: Alex Puckett (PM), Melissa Cameron (APM), Kirsten Kallies (GM), Nick Belleba (Engineer)
Project Summary: Medication noncompliance is a major problem that exists within the area of home healthcare. It is responsible for approximately 10 percent of all hospital admissions and up to 98,000 deaths every year. In addition, medication noncompliance results in $76.6 billion per year in increased hospital stays, lost wages, and death. In order to alleviate the burden of polypharmacy and to reduce medication noncompliance, INRange Inc. has developed an automated medication dispenser for home use. Research has been done to facilitate the design of a sidecar device that would work in conjunction with the INRange Medication Delivery Unit to serve as a transportable means to administer medication in times of main unit power loss, emergencies, and short term travel.
Design Team 03003 - Interactive Approach to Introductory Laboratory Biomechanics and Gait Analysis using Joint Power
Team Members: Jon Barrett (Engineer), Danny Godbout (PM), Beth Moe (APM) and John Osmanski (Engineer)
Project Summary: Biomedical engineering design team 03003 is working on a portable, affordable gait analysis solution for undergraduate level biomechanics labs. The hardware portion of the device will consist of a data acquisition board obtaining angular velocity data from MEMS sensors mounted on the user's legs. On-board data storage will allow complete portability of the device, allowing the user to walk beyond the confines of a lab station. Software developed for this project will interface with the data acquisition hardware to analyze the data recorded. In conjunction with published data, the data obtained from the device will be used to calculate joint power. With an estimated price of less than $2000, this device is aimed at undergraduate laboratories not able to afford a complete gait lab costing over $150,000.
Design Team 03004: Levodopa Detection: Therapeutic Drug Monitoring for Parkinson's Disease Patients
Team Members: Deanna Haas (PM), Erik Storvik (APM), Daren Hughes (Engineer), James Rinaldi (Engineer)Project Summary: Parkinson's disease is the second most prevalent neurodegenerative disorder affecting approximately 1.5 million people in the United States. As of 1997, the annual cost for the treatment of Parkinson's disease rose to 25 billon dollars. The pathologic marker for Parkinson's is a progressive degeneration of the substantia nigra pars compacta. As cellular loss increases due to this neural degeneration, the dopamine level becomes scarce resulting in a variety of debilitating motor dysfunctions. These symptoms must inevitably be treated with levodopa, the pharmaceutical "gold standard". Accurate monitoring of levodopa levels in the blood is critical to maximize the level and duration of therapeutic efficacy. Currently, there are no therapeutic drug monitoring devices for levodopa, hence the need for compact, wearable, continuous monitoring. The goal of this project is to develop a Feasibility Test Unit (FTU) that would demonstrate the technology and theory necessary for development of a commercially available device. The FTU will demonstrate the ability to sample levodopa levels using Reverse Iontophoresis (RI) and measure those levels using peroxidation detection.
Design team 021001 - Ultrasound Microvasculature Phantom
Team Members: Jim Rinaldi, Melissa McCormick, Dawn Leyendecker, Alex Kislia, and Tam Dang.
Project Summary: Ultrasound scanning of the microvasculature is an emerging field in Doppler imaging. Applications include, imaging ocular microvasculature, and studying tumor angiogenesis. In order to meet the needs of industry involved in research and development of this new technology, microcirculation phantoms provide a necessary method to test advances. Additionally, it is important in the clinical setting that microvascular phantoms are incorporated into high frequency scanner quality assurance programs.
Our desgin team will develop a Doppler flow phantom that accurately protrays
the hemodynamics and morphology of the human microcirculation. Physiological
circumstances within the patient population such as arteriole, capillary,
and venule flow rates, microvessel size and depth will be accounted for
in the design.
Design team 02002 - Postmenopausal Female Patient Monitoring
Team Members: Jackie Bohman, Heather Swanson, Greg Michalak, and Melissa Prah.
Project Summary: The medical profession has identified an alarming increase in the death rate of postmenopausal females suffering from a myocardial infarction. The massive myocardial infarction goes undetected by the current monitoring systems. An increasing number of myocardial infarctions have gone undiagnosed in post-menopausal women. In order to save women's lives either the ECG needs to be modified or another way to diagnose older women at risk needs to be designed.
Since the clinical problems of myocardial infarctions occurring in postmenopausal
women at an alarmingly higher rate has been identified and found to be
of importance and areas where the problem may lie have been identified
(equipment and/or difference in anatomy among men and women), the team
proposes changes be made to both the hardware and software of the ECG.
Once changes have been implemenented in a prototype situation, tests will
be conducted to compare the effectiveness of the new design to the current
ECG device.
Design team 01001 - Psychomotor Performance Evaluation System
Team Members: Steven Bloomberg, Sara Davies, Evelyn Hunter, Cassandra Mallon, and Eric Nickel.
Project Summary: Our psychomotor performance evaluation system is a hardware and software package designed to assess psychomotor performance deficiencies in high-risk occupations such as commercial drivers, pilots, and heavy equipment operators. It has been designed to detect psychomotor performance deficiencies for any reason (including alcohol, disease, medication and sleep deprivation). It compares the performance of an individual to the population average, permitting performance based safety restrictions to be developed, rather than relying on chemical concentration based limits such as blood alcohol concentration.
The software package uses a battery of tests that measure a variety of psychomotor functions to relate the performance of a subject to a scale based on blood alcohol concentration. The software is intended for use on a PDA (Palm) or tablet PC type hand-held device. Upon acceptable test completion, our device sends a signal to the vehicle/machinery that enables the starting mechanism, permitting operation.
Design team 01002 - Versatile Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) Evaluation System
Team Members: Abrar Bahbahani, Miranda Cullins, Andrea Erdman, Lyndsae Howell, Adam Marcetich, and Jonathan Szkil.
Project Summary: We designed an attachment for a standard CPR mannequin that provides real time performance feedback capabilities. Our device consists of a vest that can be placed on any standard size CPR mannequin. It uses a load cell combined with a matrix of pressure sensitive switches to determine the magnitude and placement of CPR compressions. The results of these chest compression measurements are displayed on a computer and are intended for use during CPR training. Our device has been designed to be price and performance competitive with special purpose instrumented CPR mannequins already on the market.
Design team 01003 - Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) based Motion Evaluation System
Team Members: Nathan Baldwin, Andrea Gresens, Justin Hass, Kristy Messina, and Brett Rhodes.
Project Summary: Current motion analysis systems are costly and only available at special testing facilities. We designed a wireless motion analysis system that uses micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) accelerometers and gyroscopes to measure the 3-dimensional motion of a human limb. This system should lower the cost of motion analysis and make it more available for use as a diagnostic tool. We have created a prototype device that uses MEMS technology to measure the position of a point as it moves through 3-deminsional space and stores the resulting data in a file for further analysis and graphical display.
Design team 01004 - Dynamic Cardiac Computed Tomography (CT) Phantom
Team Members: Zeyad Al-Kahtani, Jeffrey Clark, Cheryl Schneider, and Xong Vang.
Project Summary: We have designed an x-ray CT Phantom that simulates both heart motion and coronary vessel calcification. The most important factor of the design was the realistic simulation of left ventricular motion.
CT images can be blurred due to motion artifacts, especially when high-density materials like calcium rich plaques are present. Our team has created a phantom with high-density materials, simulating calcium rich arterial constrictions, placed around the exterior of a pumping heart component. The pumping component is composed of an elastic bag that is connected to a powered syringe that was sized based on the ejection volume of the human heart. In addition, the phantom was designed to send pulses indicating cardiac contractions to interface with the ECG triggering capabilities of some CT machines. The pumping component can be imaged with a CT machine and the amount of blurring qualitatively analyzed. The phantom can be used for research purposes to improve imaging quality thereby reducing the chances of a false or inaccurate diagnosis.
Design team 00001 - Three-dimensional Bioelectric Signal and Volume Conduction Education Aide Engineers
Team Members: Kelly Beck, Andrew Jaczynski, Ron Fijalkowski, and Toni Wills.
Project Summary: On the market today there are several software packages that simulate volumetric conduction of action potentials, however there are no hands-on educational tools. Design Team 00001 has created a device that simulates an excited neuron's electrical effect on human tissue. An electrical circuit was designed to create an action potential, which is the type of electrical signal created by an excited human motor neuron. The action potential is conducted to a cylindrical media via a multi-node apparatus representing nodes of Ranvier found on a neuronal axon. This media was designed to mimic the resistive electrical properties of human tissue.
In the field of biomedical engineering, the detection and analysis of small-scale signals is critical, especially in regard to human tissue. With this device, undergraduate students have the option to build the instrumentation necessary to detect the signal present within the media. For example differential voltage measurements can be made on the surface and within the volume of the media.
Design team 00002 - Video-Ocular Wheelchair Control System
Team Members: Kathleen A. Zweigler, Benjamin M. Ellingson, Benjamin R. Archambault, and Catherine M. Jaworski.
Project Summary: The electric wheelchair provides a way for quadriplegic individuals to interact with their environment. Besides transportation, the wheelchair controls may enable them to operate lights, television, computers, and telephones. Many of the electric wheelchairs available to quadriplegic individuals today use control systems such as a sip and puff, chin control and/or head control that may be unsanitary or cause physiological side effects. Team 00002 designed a wheelchair control system that circumvents these side effects by allowing the user to visually select wheelchair operation commands presented on a miniature, head-mounted video display. A computer with an on-board video camera monitors the user's eye position and communicates commands to the wheelchair. This process is called video-oculography (VOG). Team 00002 constructed a prototype to validate the functionality of a VOG wheelchair control system.
"Being able to control your environment means the difference between being independent and spending the rest of your life in an institution." - Lew Boles
Design team 00004 - Soccer Heading Analysis
Team Members: Jon Nass, Megan Christensen, and Matt Orr.
Project Summary: Soccer is one of the most popular and fastest growing sports in the world. In recent years, various studies have been performed that suggest that heading a ball in soccer may cause head trauma. An impact to the head may cause the brain to shake, move and turn inside the skull, which is why the concern of heading initially arose.
The design problem of our project is to accurately simulate the effect that heading a soccer ball can pose to players and predict physiological harm caused by the impact of the ball. We have proposed a two-system design that will both simulate a soccer ball-to-head collision and record an actual collision. One part of the design will consist of a head mount system and a data recording analysis system. This physical system utilizes accelerometers in different positions on the head to measure acceleration during contact with the soccer ball. An appropriate computer simulation of this event was used to provide more insight into the impact between a head and a soccer ball. This program demonstrated the impact in situations that were comparable to the recorded tests and situations where the impact was significantly greater than what was tested. This system was tested using a basic heading drill as outlined by soccer tutorials.
Design team 00005 - Pulse Oximeter Waveform Analyzer
Team Members: Marcus Griffith, Jason Cherney, Jesse Jones, Arun Roy, and Jon Burkhardt.
Project Summary: Pulse oximeters (P.O.) are noninvasive medical devices used to monitor pulse rate and the percentage of hemoglobin that is saturated with oxygen in arterial blood (SaO2). These devices are notorious for sounding false alarms due to their susceptibility to various sources of artifact and other non-emergency patient conditions. The biomedical device industry has responded to this with numerous advances, yet, the "perfect product" remains illusive. Design team 00005 has designed the Pulse Oximetry Waveform Analyzer (P.O.W.A) in the form of a combination hardware/software package that uses neural networks to dynamically reconstruct P.O. signals without common noise anomalies associated with the majority of the products available on the market today. This was accomplished by training the neural network to be able to accept corrupt P.O. signals and reconstruct them into clinically viable signals. Our product differs from existing technology in that we used neural networks to process the signal with the goal of eliminating adverse effects of motion artifact from the plethysmograph waveform, and SaO2 estimation.
Design team 99004 - Fuzzy Muscle Stimulator
Team Members: Doug Prah, Erin Kuenstler, Jesse Upp, Desiree Dugan, and Eric Paulson.
Project Summary: Our research problem was to determine the effectiveness of a fuzzy logic controller (FLC) in maintaining the balance of an anatomically proportionate endoskeleton. The endoskeleton was restricted to movement in only the sagittal plane and was actuated at the ankle, knee, and hip joints via electric motors. After the endoskeleton was perturbed, feedback from pressure sensors (used to determine the center of pressure) and linear potentiometers (to determine the angle, velocity, and acceleration of the joints) was input to the FLC. Labview was chosen to provide the operating environment for the FLC. Based on the data received from the feedback variables, the FLC computed the appropriate motor torque required to restore balance to the endoskeleton.
Design team 99002 - Hydraulic Pressure Generator
Team Members: Amy Horst, Marie Kluge, Kim Spurgeon, Melissa Wagner, and Ellie Younger.
Project Summary: The purpose of our project was to design and develop a device capable of producing hydraulic pressure waveforms similar to that available at the radial or brachial artery. The device developed is a hydraulic pressure generator that is also able to produce variable-frequency, variable-magnitude sinusoidal and square waveforms that can be used during transducer-tubing frequency response studies. This capability allows the user to observe the response of a blood pressure monitoring system under various non-ideal conditions. There are similar products available from other companies, however these each have deficiencies in their operation and while they may address a single requirement, they do not encompass all of the specifications of this project.
Design team 98001 - Digital Biological Signal And Image Web Application Database
Team Members: Andrea Pedone, Sarah Ankerstein, and Cory Martynski.
Project Summary: A user who is searching for digital biological signals and images can easily get lost in the World Wide Web. Searching for this type of information and data results in finding random websites that contain limited data. To solve this problem, a web database application has been designed to allow the user to browse through numerous digital biological signals and images that were combined to form a complete organized database with download capabilities all in one website. The web page designed, consists of unique signals and images, as well as links to other web databases. This data includes normal and pathological conditions. The web page also increases the usability of each signal/image by providing examples and directions on how to obtain these from the original websites. By offering these links, re-storing collections that are already avilable on the internet is eliminated.
Design team 98002 - Medical Signal Simulation Database
Team Members: Amy Andreae, Holly Beckman, Karuna Sharvari, and Clara Guixa.
Project Summary: The Medical Signal Simulation Database (MSSD), a computer database of biological signals on compact disks, was created. The MSSD was produced with two distinct operating missions and users in mind: the nursing and biomedical engineering departments of the Milwaukee School of Engineering.
The first objective of the MSSD is to function as a user-friendly viewing module of medical signals for nursing education. Nurses need to be prepared to care for patients in the hospital, clinical and home setting. This patient care includes not only attending to the physical conditions of the patient, but monitoring them as well. With this software, nursing students will be introduced to numerous normal and abnormal medical signals. These signals will be displayed on a computer monitor and resemble actual patient monitors found in a clinical setting. The specific medical signals the MSSD offers are electrocardiogram signals (ECG), electromyogram signals (EMG), fetal monitoring signals and spirometry signals.
In addition to aiding in the monitoring education of nursing students, the MSSD serves as an excellent addition to the current biomedical engineering curriculum. The versatility of the MSSD allows the faculty and students of Milwaukee School of Engineering to have access to the actual data points of each medical signal. These data points can then be implemented in the classroom or laboratory setting for digital signal processing or as an analog output for biomedical instrumentation and electronics.
Design team 98003 - GE-Marquette Eagle 4000 Monitor Trainer Using Simultaneous Multi-Parameter Signals
Team Members: Paul Clark, Carrie Whittaker, Tae Hun Kim, Natalya Melnikov, and Austin Williams.
Project Summary: The Eagle 4000 is a patient monitor available from GE-Marquette that is commonly found in Intensive Care Units (ICUs). A patient monitor trainer is a valuable tool to assist nurses and technicians in gaining familiarity with the equipment in a "non-emergency" situation. The design surpasses currently available systems with the added features of displaying simultaneous multi-parameter signals; interfacing with a Windows based computer, and the option of updating the database. The system utilizes analog and digital options for interfacing a personal computer with the Eagle 4000.
The trainer displays multi-parameter waveforms such as Electrocardiography (Leads I, II, III), Respiratory, Plethysmography, and Invasive Blood Pressure. Simultaneously recorded data is reproduced using controlling software to transmit the data through either the analog or digital interfaces of the Eagle 4000 patient monitor. The analog subsystem communicates with the analog inputs on the front panel of the Eagle 4000 to reproduce the desired signals. The digital subsystem transmits the data through a network connection and can display the data on the same or a different monitor in the MSOE nursing laboratory. The total trainer system will allow the user to choose the desired data file according to signals present and also give the user the option to add aditional files.
Design team 97007 - Measurement of Blood Flow in the Coronary Arteries Using Far-Infrared Thermography
Team Members: John Janik, Alicia Callahan, Nate Newby, and Edwin Therego.
Project Summary: A system for the non-invasive measurement of blood flow in the coronary arteries was developed. Blood flow through the coronary arteries can indicate the presence of physiologically damaging conditions affecting the cardiovascular system. As the medical community moves toward non-invasive or minimally invasive surgical techniques, the desire to obtain a blood flow measurement without having to puncture the vascular system is growing. In response to this demand, a proof-of-concept system for the quantification of blood flow in the coronary arteries that will not require the insertion of any device or solution into the vascular system was designed. This proof-of-concept project involved the design and application of a far-infrared detection system to determine the quantitative blood flow in a coronary artery. Data from a model of the coronary artery network was acquired using a pyrometer. The pyrometer detected natural, infrared radiation emissions caused by the temperature of warm, moving fluid within the artery model. The correlation between the wavelength and intensity of the radiation emissions, the fluid's temperature profile and the fluid's flow rate was calculated. Fluid flow rate is displayed to the user. The proof-of-concept supports future directions for this project. These directions include the clinical applicaton of the sytem and upgrading the components of the design for use.
Design team 97004 - Neonatal Intensive Care Nursing Simulation
Team Members: Dana Zelazny, Deborah Adler, Jessica Jesmok, Michael Kunelius, and Rebecca Zick.
Project Summary: Nurse inexperience in a clinical setting can lead to increased patient discomfort, which in the case of pre-term infants can be life threatening. However, training for Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) Nursing is a costly and time-consuming process. Pre-term infants are usually placed inside an incubator, which serves both to regulate the environmental conditions so as to best serve the infant's needs. Nurses need to learn how to control the incubator so as to maintain the infant's thermal equilibrium.
A product has been designed that will better prepare nursing students for employment in an NICU. This device is an infant-sized manikin for use in an incubator that produces thermal output correlating to metabolic rate. However, this metabolic rate, as in a clinical setting, will be insufficient to maintain optimal body temperature. Therefore, nursing students will learn to use the incubator to both properly monitor and supplement the manikin's metabolic output in order to maintain optimal body temperature. During the course of use, the manikin's metabolic rate may be changed to simulate unexpected changes in an infant's health. The entire system is self-contained so that the product may be used with any incubator.
Design team 97003 - Intracranial Pressure Monitoring
Team Members: Melissa Meyer, Thomas Smith, Jon Crispin, and Samantha Richerson.
Project Summary: When a patient suffers from severe head trauma, or a disease such as hydrocephalus, their intracranial pressure (ICP) may become elevated. In order to reduce this increase in ICP, a physician may insert a catheter into the cranial cavity. While in the intensive care unit (ICU), nursing interactions influene a patient's ICP. These interactions include head rotation, bed elevation, and cerebral spinal drainage. Monitoring these physical characteristics is necessary to prevent a patient's ICP from reaching dangerously elevated levels that may cause brain damage or even death. An intracranial pressure monitoring simulation has been designed as a teaching tool for the nursing department at the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE). This simulation provides normal and abnormal representations of the ICP waveform. Nursing students will gain a substantial understanding of nurse-patient interaction and the resulting ICP waveform.
Design team 97002 - Hemodynamic Monitoring: Pulmonary Artery Catheterization Simulation
Team Members: Aaron Suminski, Katrena Kennish, Rami Niazy, and Kera Vant.
Project Summary: A pulmonary artery catherterization simulation for the training of nursing students has been developed. The simulator develops knowledge of the concept of pressure and provides a foundation to the understanding of the principles of hemodynamic monitoring. A nurse in an intensive care setting needs to be knowledgeable regarding different hemodynamic monitoring aspects. This simulator provides a nursing teaching tool that simulates realistic hemodynamic aspects, specifically, simulating the blood pressures associated with the heart as measured by a Swan-Ganz catheter. The simulator's output is the appropriate pressure waveforms displayed on an ICU monitor just as would happen in an actual ICU setting. Inside the simulator, the catheter moves and thus shows a nurse the hemodynamic pressures that would be measured by the PA catheter along its path from the right atrium, through the right ventricle, and into the pulmonary artery where a wedge pressure is simulated. This actual movement of the catheter allows for easier future upgrades of the system for the purpose of training physicians on the cut-down procedure involved with catheter insertion.