Medical Instrumentation and the Standard Equipments

Medical Instrumentation is the use or development of scientific instruments in medicine.

Standard equipment’s in the doctor’s office includes;

• Stethoscope
• Patellometer (an instrument for measuring the knee-jerk)
• Weight Scale
• Flashlight
• Sphygmomanometer (the instrument for measuring blood pressure)
• Clinical Thermometer
• Tongue Depressors
• Catheter
• Bandages
• Hypodermic Syringes.

The standard equipment’s in the hospitals and in offices of some cardiologists and neurologists are:

• electrocardiograph - for cardiac diagnosis
• electroencephalograph - for brain wave studies

New instruments that are perfected by biomedical engineers are:

1. Pacemaker - an electrical device which controls the heartbeat when the physiological mechanism fails. It is implanted in the chest and connected with the ventricle by a wire passed through the veins. It is now used in conjunction with transducers and amplifiers. It can be charged by induction from a magnetic field created externally. They do not have to be removed to recharge the batteries.
2. Radioactive isotope scanning - is a technique which produces clearly defined changes in various organs in contrasting colors.
3. Radioactive selenomethionine - is used in scanning pancreas.
• Other isotopes have been developed for scanning the lungs, brain, bone/bone marrow and blood.
4. Acoustical heartbeat analyzer - is a phonographic device which can be plugged into any normal electrical socket. It flashes a red light when there is a heart murmur.

Source:

• Fishbein's Illustrated - Medical and Health Encyclopedia - Home Library Edition- Stuttman