Prehospital occult trauma detection and monitoring of traffic accident victims
Research Project, 2014 – 2015

Electrical BioImpedance (EBI) technology is a potential diagnostic and monitoring tool for trauma victim assessment. It is non‐invasive, harmless, non‐expensive, rapid, portable and easy to use- making it ideal for ambulance use. Another great advantage is that thoracic EBI measurements allow heart and respiration rates detection, as well as estimation of haemodynamic parameters. All these measurements are essential in the prehospital monitoring setting. The most common injury as a consequence of a traffic accident is chest blunt trauma. Because blunt trauma might be occult, the final purpose is to develop a tool that non-invasively detect and monitor occult trauma. In order to do that, the first step is the objective of the present study. The objective is to assess the relationship between chest trauma and bioimpedance. Being bioimpedance defined as the opposition of biological tissue to the flow of electric current. The project is a pilot study aiming to measure thoracic bioimpedance in chest trauma patients at Sahlgrenska University Hospital. This is made possible thanks to Hans Granhed and Eva-Corina Caragounis who helped to set a collaboration with the trauma ward. The data recorded in this project will be very valuable as it belong to real patients. Moreover, most of them will have tissue damage what is needed to evaluate the value of bioimpedance phase angle for detection and monitoring of trauma, which has not been done before.

Participants

Ruben Buendia (contact)

Chalmers, Electrical Engineering, Signal Processing and Biomedical Engineering

Bengt-Arne Sjöqvist

Chalmers, Electrical Engineering, Signal Processing and Biomedical Engineering

Collaborations

Sahlgrenska University Hospital

Gothenburg, Sweden

University of Borås

Borås, Sweden

Funding

Folksams forskningsstiftelse

Project ID: E13
Funding Chalmers participation during 2014–2015

Related Areas of Advance and Infrastructure

Sustainable development

Driving Forces

Life Science Engineering (2010-2018)

Areas of Advance

More information

Latest update

2015-10-07