Development of a hardware for intraoperative spinal cord monitoring and automatic alarm system

应避免医源性脊髓损伤，这可能发生在脊柱和脊髓的侵略性外科手术过程中。为了实现这一目的，术中脊髓监测是通过观察脊髓诱发电位来进行的，尽管日本没有合适的硬件。在这笔拨款的支持下，我们开发了一种专门用于记录诱发电位的硬件。特别注重具有易于理解的控制能力和高保真的灵敏度。因此，选择参数设置的组合方法，即；键盘控制和电位器控制被认为是更容易被医疗辅助人员接受的方法。放大器的灵敏度、刺激强度和示波器的扫描速度由旋转旋钮控制，使循环护士可以改变记录条件。如果所选电位峰值的峰对峰幅度下降小于初始设定的控制波相同分量的百分比，则该硬件具有发出报警声音的能力。在手术室中，该自动报警系统为该仪器用于脊髓监测提供了很大的可行性。

The iatrogenic spinal cord injury, which can occur during aggressive surgical procedures on the spine and spinal cord, should be avoided. To accomplish this purpose, intraoperative spinal cord monitoring is carried out by observing spinal cord evoked potentials, although, there was no appropriate hardware made in Japan.Being supported by this grant, we have developed a hardware exclusively designed to record evoked potentials. Special attention was paid to equip with easily understandable control ability and high fidelity sensitivity.Therefore, the combined method of parameter setting was selected, namely; the key board control method and potentiometer controls which are regarded to be more acceptable for the paramedical assistants. Sensitivity of the amplifier, strength of the stimulation and sweep speed of the osciloscope are controlled by turning knobs, and it made circulating nurse possible to change recording conditions.This hardware has ability to made alarm sound if the peak to peak amplitude of the selected peak of potential degraded less than initially set percentage of the same component of control wave. In the operating theatre, this automatic alarm system can offer great feasibility of this instrument for the purpose of the spinal cord monitoring.