System and method for identifying blood pressure zones during autoregulation monitoring

Inventors

Addison, Paul S. • Montgomery, Dean

Assignees

Covidien LP

Abstract

A monitor configured to monitor autoregulation includes a memory encoding one or more processor-executable routines and a processor configured to access and execute the one or more routines encoded by the memory. When executed, the routines cause the processor to receive one or more physiological signals from a patient, determine a measure indicative of an autoregulation status of the patient based on the one or more physiological signals, generate an autoregulation alarm indicative of an impaired autoregulation status when the measure exceeds a predetermined threshold for more than a predetermined period of time.

Core Innovation

The invention describes an autoregulation monitoring system that receives one or more physiological signals of a patient, including a first physiological signal indicating blood pressure at a given time, and one or more physiological signals used to determine autoregulation state values. The system determines a set of blood pressure values based on the first physiological signal over a period of time and determines autoregulation state values based on the one or more physiological signals.

Using the blood pressure values and the autoregulation state values, the system generates an autoregulation profile of the patient in which autoregulation state values are plotted on a vertical axis and corresponding blood pressure values are plotted on a horizontal axis. The system identifies a blood pressure safe zone of the autoregulation profile by identifying a largest continuous positive region of the autoregulation profile and designating the largest continuous positive region as the blood pressure safe zone.

The system instructs a display to display a visual indication of the blood pressure safe zone and stores an indication of the blood pressure safe zone in a memory in communication with the one or more processors. In the documented refinements, the safe zone identification and alert logic are tied to the selected positive region, including defining boundaries and determining whether impaired autoregulation persists using threshold- and integral-based conditions.

Claims Coverage

Independent claims cover a monitor, a non-transitory computer-readable medium, and a method, all centered on generating an autoregulation profile from physiological signals, identifying a blood pressure safe zone as the largest continuous positive region, and displaying a visual indication of the safe zone; additional dependent claims add boundary determination and alarm logic with specified thresholds and integration over time.

Across the independent claims, the core claim coverage is the generation of an autoregulation profile from physiological signals, identification of a blood pressure safe zone as the largest continuous positive region of that profile, and a display of a visual indication of the safe zone, with the monitor claim further requiring storing an indication in memory.

Stated Advantages

Documented Applications