A MICROPROCESSOR BASED PORTABLE BIOMEDICAL DATA RECORDER

Abstract

Data recorders collect and store data for later analysis. Many recorders do some processing of the raw data immediately to separate out the data of interest and use the storage space more efficiently. The portable biomedical data recorder described here stores data from a human subject and is self contained and light enough to be worn by the subject. The medical data of interest is the acidity of the lower part of the esophagus and the relationship of this acidity to chest pains in a patient. Diagnosis of this problem can be done by monitoring this acidity for a 24 hour period and looking for a correlation between an increase in acidity and the chest pains. In the past the equipment to do this test was non-portable and used a paper strip-chart recorder to plot the variations in acidity. A portable recorder as described in this thesis can replace this equipment while allowing the patient freedom of movement and eliminating the requirement for a hospital stay for the 24 hour period. The microprocessor in the recorder allows the recorder to be reconfigured to maximize the usable data collected. In this thesis features of the recorder and its design are explained. The desk top microcomputer which is used to analyze the biomedical data is also described.