J. Gabriel, C. Teixeira, A. Silva, O. Postolache, G. Postolache, and P. Amorim (Portugal)
Laryngoscope, force sensors, endotracheal intubation
A laryngoscope is a surgical instrument used to facilitate endotracheal intubation task during general anaesthesia or mechanical ventilation. This task usually takes less than a minute, but requires very precise movements and force control ability; otherwise it may result in serious damages to the patient incisors, larynx, spinal column, changes in heart rate and/or blood-pressure. This work presents a prototype of a device that can be easily adapt to a common laryngoscope, which allows the measurement of the force applied between the handler and the blade. The force measurements are acquired by a bluetooth® data acquisition module and transmitted to a portable computer for data recording and analysis. Real time force information is provided to laryngoscopists and alarm triggered as desired by according to the user settings. The software application – Laring Monitor - was built in Free Pascal and is able to be run in different operating systems (Windows, Linux and Mac X).
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