Event

The development of a non-invasive device using a infrared light source and a photo diode for the purpose of detemining whether microvascular resistance could indeed be measured by the temporal pulse parameters Tg/Ta. The comparison of the pulse contour wave was shown to resemble that which was observed using the CMMD software. In this experiment the software interface was CHART and every detail of the trace was found to be represented telling of the success of the design. Microvascular resistance that normally accompanies subjects with cardiovascular diseases was simulated using a rubber band on the test site of normal subjects. This was done so as to compare the Tg/Ta values before and after this special manoeuvre. The rubber band was placed on the first joint on the left hand and left for five(5) minutes after which the it was removed and measurements were taken. It was found that from a sample of twenty-seven test subjects, that for both men and women exhibited greater Tg/Ta ratios after the manoeuvre but statistically that was not significant since for the both groups the p- value calculated was above 0.05. This result may have been attributed to the fact that the time that the rubberband was left on the finger was too short to create any notable changes in the blood flow. Another experiment was performed using the aforementioned device to determine whether there were any differences in Tg/Ta ratios for normotensives, diabetics and hypertensives. Firstly only two groups were considered that was the normotensives and the cardiovascular group, which contained both the diabetics and the hypertensives. An analysis of variance was performed on the data set and what was discovered was that age groups, ethnicity and gender were the only significant independent variables. There was also no interaction between these two groups,telling us that despite the age of the subject if he was a normotensive his Tg/Ta ratio would always be higher. The cardiovascular group was broken into its constituent groups namely diabetics and hypertensives and these three groups were now considered in an ANOVA. It was found that in addition to the groups mentioned before being significant there was a significant interaction found between age group and ethnicity. The graphs showed that there was only one interaction and that was for the younger age group. If you were in between the ages of seventeen and twenty five and normotensive the Tg/Ta values would be lower but for all other older age groups it would be higher. These results have shown the great potential of this device to be a diagnostic tool in the determination of the quality of blood circulation.