monitors

Described over a 100 years ago, pulse contour analysis was purported to be a surrogate for cardiac output. In this technique, the area under the systolic portion of the arterial pressure curve is calculated. This area changes during the…

Pressure transducers are a cornerstone for measuring arterial, central venous, pulmonary artery, and even intracranial pressures. These transducers operate through a Wheatstone bridge, a circuit with an arrangement of resistors of known…

Managing elevated intracranial pressure (ICP) is of paramount importance in neurocritical care. Placing bedside ICP monitors are contraindicated if the patient is coagulopathic, has a brain abscess, or has an active scalp infection.…

The pulse oximeter ("pulse ox") is perhaps the greatest noninvasive perioperative/acute care monitor created in the modern era. It uses a light emitter and photodetector to analyze light absorbance across an extremity (typically a finger or…

One of the most common mistakes I've heard on rounds, in the ICU, on the floor, or just in general conversation is that the "patient's blood pressure is XXX over XXX." The overwhelming majority of clinics and hospitals rely on automatic…

Although the use of pulmonary artery catheters (PACs, otherwise known as Swan-Ganz catheters) has never been shown to confer a mortality benefit, they are still routinely used in operating rooms and intensive care units to help guide…

Routinely utilized in ICUs, operating rooms, and telemetry floors, the pulse oximeter ("pulse ox") is perhaps the single greatest monitoring advancement in the modern medical era. It relies on the fact that oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin…