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Applications

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Medical care of newborn infants needs improved information and therapy technology to prevent injuries unique to premature and distressed newborn infants, specifically with monitoring and management of oxygen during birth transition. The rapid increase in oxygen supply from breathing following premature birth, currently guided by blood oxygen monitoring, is associated with vital organ injuries and life-long disabilities. More generalized neurological injury in term and near-term newborns, currently referred to as hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE), is also associated with rapid increase in oxygen supply at birth.
Effective surveillance during sleep includes continuous assessment of the airway, oxygen supply to the body, and the stability of breathing regulation. This is especially critical with premature infants as their lungs develop and their breathing control matures. Prevention of apnea episodes during NICU care and prevention of SIDS/SUID later in infancy both appear to need better assessment of breathing control and gentle, preventive intervention when abnormal breathing patterns or hypoxic stress are recognized. Assessment and optimization of home sleep therapy in children and adults also needs user-friendly and relevant monitoring of breathing stability and oxygen supply.
Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) is one of the most effective ways of treating obstructive sleep apnea. Modern devices that provide this therapy are able to accurately measure the operation of the machine, but cannot sense or track the physiologic response in the user. This information gap can be overcome with CEi monitoring during sleep to expose episodes of distress not addressed by the machine settings. Ultimately, continuous optimization of therapy may become possible when the CEi data stream is used to provide feedback guidance of therapy. The linked slide deck shows CEi recordings of optimization of therapy for several subjects.
While surgical anesthesia is one of the most important advances in modern medicine, delirium and cognitive decline in aged patients following general anesthesia and cardiac surgery calls for improved awareness of cellular oxygen supply and cellular adaptation prior to, during, and immediately following anesthesia. This critical information is not available from blood oxygen measurements and monitoring of SpO2, but is very evident in the CEi response to changes in oxygen supply; especially when the oxygen supply is rapidly increased above atmospheric level.
Stabilization of harvested organs, maintenance during transport, and achieving normal physiologic function following implant needs a more effective means of monitoring oxygen supply to organ tissues. Similarly, ischemia/reperfusion injury (IRI) associated with therapy for ischemic stroke and heart attack needs to accommodate cellular adaptation that is not evident in blood oxygen metrics. These critical therapies can now be updated and enhanced with closed-loop control of cellular oxygen delivery based on CEi's robust, full-scale, tissue-derived biometrics of oxygen utilization and cellular adaptation.
Continuous physiological surveillance during aging in place, assisted living, and in skilled nursing centers needs physiologically relevant and user-friendly wearable technology. This is increasingly important during sleep as a person ages to assure stable breathing control and adequate oxygen intake, but is very difficult to achieve with existing technologies. The CE monitor has demonstrated improved assessment of these critical functions in a published research report. Further development toward a sensor system for this application is underway.
Evaluation of cardiovascular fitness throughout the human lifespan needs relevant and accessible biomarkers to achieve the level of accuracy needed to optimize human performance, to assess risk prior to surgery, and to measure progress during rehabilitation. Laboratory metabolic cart data is the current standard, but this technology cannot detect the initial vasoconstriction response in the skin as the need for oxygen increases with exertion. Also missing is assessment of cellular adaptation during exertion that affects the duration of optimum aerobic performance. SpO2 cannot see these responses: CEi detects and continuously tracks both.
Aerospace medicine is in need of more effective monitoring of oxygen supply to pilots and astronauts as they encounter variations in breathing gas oxygen pressure (ppO2). Preparation for launch and for spacewalks requires removal of nitrogen gas dissolved in the astronaut's body to prevent "bends" as the astronaut transitions to the much lower atmospheric pressure used in space suits. Sudden loss of cabin pressure during high altitude flight may result in pilot incapacitation that may prevent disabling autopilot. A CEi-triggered response to the pilot's sudden cellular hypoxia could automatically disengage autopilot and enable remote-controlled stable flight and rescue procedures, or auto-land.
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