Veterinary Vital Signs Monitor

Overview

A veterinary vital signs monitor continuously measures and displays the physiological parameters that tell a clinician how an animal is doing under anesthesia or in critical care. It is a portable multiparameter unit: one instrument tracks the electrocardiogram, oxygen saturation, non-invasive blood pressure, body temperature, end-tidal CO2, and respiration at once, using probes and cuffs shaped for animal anatomy, and raises audible and visual alarms when any value leaves its set limits.

The clinician reads waveforms and numerics on the Display Assembly, driven by the Main Board, a SoC compute board that runs the user interface and stores trends. Patient signals are gathered by the dedicated parameter modules: the ECG Module with its atraumatic lead clips, the SpO2 Module with a paw or tongue clip probe, the NIBP Module driving an oscillometric cuff, and the EtCO2 Capnography Module sampling exhaled gas. Their outputs converge on the Parameter Acquisition Board, an isolated analog front-end. Out-of-range readings trigger the Alarm Unit, and the unit runs from the Power System on mains or its internal pack.

How it works

Each parameter is sensed differently. The ECG module reads the heart's electrical signal from electrodes clipped to the limbs; respiration is derived from the small impedance change across those same electrodes as the chest moves. The SpO2 probe shines red and infrared light through a thin tissue site such as the tongue or paw and computes oxygen saturation from how the two wavelengths are absorbed. The NIBP module inflates a small-animal cuff with its onboard pump, then bleeds pressure through a valve while a sensor watches the oscillations to find systolic, mean, and diastolic pressure. The capnography module aspirates a gas sample and measures CO2 by infrared absorption in an NDIR optical bench.

Because the patient is electrically connected to the monitor, the acquisition board sits behind a galvanic isolation barrier that meets IEC 60601, so a mains fault cannot reach the animal. Digitized signals pass to the main board, which displays them, evaluates alarm limits, and streams data over the WiFi module to a central station.