Implantable acceleration plethysmography for blood pressure determination

Carotid arterial blood pressure waveform monitoring using a portable ultrasound system

This work presents a non-invasive arterial blood pressure (ABP) waveform monitoring technique using ultrasound. A portable ultrasound system to excite ultrasound transducers and acquire data is designed with off-the-shelf components. The insonation angles are identified using a vector Doppler technique based on the cosine dependency of the Doppler signals. The pulse pressure of an estimated waveform at the left common carotid artery is compared to the standard sphygmomanometer measurement in a clinical test. The estimated carotid ABP waveform shows excellent agreement to the finger ABP waveform with expected discrepancy of the systolic peak shape due to different measurement sites. The proposed method also tracks slow blood pressure fluctuations. This validation on human subjects shows potential for a noninvasive blood pressure waveform monitoring device at central arterial sites.

Physical Activity Capture Technology With Potential for Incorporation Into Closed-Loop Control for Type 1 Diabetes

Physical activity is an important determinant of glucose variability in type 1 diabetes (T1D). It has been incorporated as a nonglucose input into closed-loop control (CLC) protocols for T1D during the last 4 years mainly by 3 research groups in single center based controlled clinical trials involving a maximum of 18 subjects in any 1 study. Although physical activity data capture may have clinical benefit in patients with T1D by impacting cardiovascular fitness and optimal body weight achievement and maintenance, limited number of such studies have been conducted to date. Clinical trial registries provide information about a single small sample size 2 center prospective study incorporating physical activity data input to modulate closed-loop control in T1D that are seeking to build on prior studies. We expect an increase in such studies especially since the NIH has expanded support of this type of research with additional grants starting in the second half of 2015. Studies (1) involving patients with other disorders that have lasted 12 weeks or longer and tracked physical activity and (2) including both aerobic and resistance activity may offer insights about the user experience and device optimization even as single input CLC heads into real-world clinical trials over the next few years and nonglucose input is introduced as the next advance.