Thermal camera maps hypothermia
A
Flir Systems product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Jul 23, 2003
Thermal imaging is a key element of the novel Therakool system designed to reduce the severity of the effects of a cardiac arrest.
Inducing mild hypothermia in cardiac arrest patients who have not had the benefit of speedy resuscitation is now a proven method of reducing the severity of associated brain damage and indeed deaths.
Medical device manufacturer, KCI Medical - part of Kinetic Concepts - has been at the forefront of this pioneering work and is now well into the development of a commercial product - Therakool - to deliver this therapy.
Cooling certain parts of the body where the core blood runs close to the surface is key to the efficiency of this method.
And enabling KCI to map body temperature to optimise the cooling performance is a new, Flir Systems E2 thermal imaging camera.
"We needed a cost-effective thermal imaging camera that gave us a thermal map in degrees Celsius, not just a contour", explained Mark Beard, Senior Electronics Engineer and working with a 16-strong design engineering team in Ferndown.
"So, lower end products simply would not do".
Other key attributes for KCI included the compact size of the ThermaCAM.
It had to be portable enough to use in the laboratory, to mount above a volunteer, or to take easily into hospital and abroad if necessary.
"The ThermaCAM met all these criteria with the added benefit of a good sized display", Beard continued.
With product design and manufacturing facilities both in San Antonio, USA and Ferndown in Dorset, KCI Medical is a highly successful global company whose strong growth is uncommon in the sector it serves.
Its products are roughly divided into wound healing devices and speciality patient support surfaces i.e beds and overlays.
The ThermaCAM E2 has also made its mark as a research and development tool for this wider range of KCI products.
The camera was purchased with the intention of using thermography to observe the thermal characteristics of electronic components during development but the company did not expect it to pay such dividends within its first week of service.
The handheld thermal imaging camera - the world's smallest - was used to diagnose and correct a thermal management problem in an older product.
Beard concluded, "Without the E2 it would have taken a long time to resolve because the problem component was so small that attaching a thermocouple altered the temperature significantly.
The unplanned, hidden benefits of owning this technology are certainly becoming clear".
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