Ultrasound imaging
AssigneeBruin Biometrics, LLC
InventorMartin F. Burns
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The present disclosure provides methods and apparatus for evaluating tissue structure in damaged or healing tissue. The present disclosure also provides methods of identifying a patient at the onset of risk of pressure ulcer or at risk of the onset of pressure ulcer, and treating the patient with anatomy-specific clinical intervention selected based on a number of sonographic characteristics. The present disclosure also provides methods of stratifying groups of patients based on risk of wound development and methods of reducing incidence of tissue damage in a care facility. The present disclosure also provides methods to analyze trends of sonographic characteristics to detect tissue damage before it is visible, and methods to compare bisymmetric sonographic characteristics to identify damaged tissue.
Claims16
A method of assessing sonographic characteristics in a tissue below a patient's intact skin, the method comprising the steps of:
- a. emitting sound waves into the patient's skin at a first location;
- b. receiving a portion of the returned sound waves that have been echoed from the tissue;
- c. determining the length of time for the sound waves to return;
- d. determining the intensity of the returned sound waves;
- e. generating a sonography image;
- f. obtaining the sonography image;
- and
- g. obtaining the number and type of one or more sonographic characteristics, wherein the one or more sonographic characteristics is selected from the group consisting of unclear layered structure, hypoechoic lesion, discontinuous fascia, and heterogeneous hypoechoic area.
A method of stratifying a plurality of patients in a care facility based on care levels, the method comprising the steps of:
- a. obtaining a sonography image of a patient in the plurality of patients at one or more body locations selected for monitoring;
- b. determining whether a sonographic characteristic of tissue damage is present in the sonography image;
- c. determining a care level of N care levels that corresponds to the number and type of the sonographic characteristic present;
- d. assigning the care level to the patient based on step c;
- and
- e. arranging the patient of the plurality of patients into groups based on the patient's assigned care level for tissue damage.
A method for assigning a patient in a care facility to a risk category selected from a plurality of risk categories, the method comprising the steps of:
- a. obtaining a plurality of initial sonography images of the patient at one or more body locations selected for monitoring;
- b. determining whether a sonographic characteristic of tissue damage is present in the plurality of initial sonography images;
- and
- c. assigning the patient to a risk category for tissue damage selected from the plurality of risk categories wherein the assigning is based partially on the presence or absence of sonographic characteristics in step b.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.