Method and system to continuously monitor intraocular pressure and measure intracranial alterations in patients supported by assisted ventilation

A method of continuously monitoring intraocular pressure non-invasively with a transducer array configured to measure an intracranial blood flow velocity within a superior sagittal sinus of an intracranial blood vessel of a patient being monitored and supported by assisted ventilation wherein the method comprises the steps of:

• providing to the intracranial blood vessel a transmitted ultrasound beam from a transmitter transducer of the transducer array;
• detecting an echo signal from the intracranial blood vessel at a receiver transducer of the transducer array wherein the transmitter transducer and the receiver transducer are within a housing positioned on a head of the patient overlaying an open fontanelle at an area overlaying the intracranial blood vessel in which a blood flow is to be measured;
• communicating the transmitted ultrasound beam and the echo signal received to a system comprising:
• a monitor and an alarm device;
• and
• a processor communicatively connected to the transmitter transducer and the receiver transducer and the monitor and the alarm device, the processor configured to receive information from the transmitter transducer related to the transmitted ultrasound beam and the receiver transducer related to the received echo signal and determine a doppler shift when the transmitted ultrasound beam and the echo signal are different to measure an intracranial blood velocity from the doppler shift;
• automatically predicting with the processor having instructions to perform the steps of:
• comparing the measured intracranial blood velocity with a reference lookup table correlating an intracranial blood velocity with an intraocular pressure recorded from a matched patient wherein the intraocular pressure of the matched patient is within a normal range associated with a postconceptional age of the matched patient and wherein the patient being monitored is of the same postconceptional age as the matched patient;
• automatically providing an alarm by the system when the intraocular pressure measured from the patient being monitored is outside of the normal range as compared to the matched patient;
• and
• adjusting the assisted ventilation delivered to the patient being monitored when the system calculates a risk for ventilation/perfusion mismatch or actual ventilation/perfusion mismatch based upon the intraocular pressure for the patient being monitored being outside of the normal range.