System and method for pain monitoring at the point-of-care

Abstract

A method and apparatus for providing objective assessment of pain using a field portable device is described. The method includes placing an electrode set coupled to a handheld base unit on the subject's head, acquiring brain and/or peripheral nervous system electrical signals from the subject through the electrode set, processing the acquired brain electrical signals using a feature extraction algorithm stored in a memory of the base unit, classifying the processed signals into pain categories, determining an objective quantification of the pain level, and indicating the pain category and/or pain scale on the handheld base unit. The memory of the base unit stores a reference database for classification of the processed signals, or the base unit is configured to wirelessly access the reference database from a remote data storage unit.

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