Personalized tourniquet for intermittent vascular occlusion

A method for providing intermittent vascular occlusion based on a personalized tourniquet pressure (PTP), comprising:

• providing a dual-purpose tourniquet cuff having a pneumatic bladder, wherein the dual-purpose cuff is configured as a sensor and an effector and to be applied to a patient at a desired location;
• sensing and characterizing pressure pulsations indicative of a distal occlusion pressure (DOP) at the location that is indicative of a minimum pressure in the bladder at which penetration of blood past the tourniquet cuff is stopped;
• establishing a PTP that is a function of the DOP;
• establishing a non-occlusive level of pressure near zero;
• maintaining a pressure in the cuff near the PTP during a first time period;
• and
• at the end of the first time period, reducing the pressure in the cuff to the non-occlusive level and maintaining the pressure in the cuff near the non-occlusive level during a second time period.

An apparatus for providing intermittent vascular occlusion based on a personalized tourniquet pressure (PTP), comprising:

• a sensor module for estimating a distal occlusion pressure (DOP) by sensing and characterizing pressure pulsations indicative of the DOP to identify an estimated DOP equal to a minimum pressure at which penetration of blood past at least one applied dual-purpose tourniquet cuff is stopped, the dual-purpose cuff being configured as a sensor and an effector;
• a controller for establishing a PTP that is a function of the DOP, wherein the controller includes a user interface configured to enable a user to override the estimation of the DOP by the sensor module by setting the PTP to a level of pressure selected by the user;
• and
• an effector module operable for maintaining a pressure in the applied tourniquet cuff between the PTP and the non-occlusive level according to a cycle pressure waveform during each of a plurality of cycle time periods.