US 4,409,983 AGranted

Pulse measuring device

OwnerDavid E. Albertinventor

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

A portable, body-worn pulsemeter which displays the wearer's pulse rate by processing signals corresponding to the pulse beat of the wearer. This device has a piezo-electric transducer adapted to produce an output signal responsive to the force produced by the wearer's pulsebeat. The output signal operates through other elements to produce a representation of the wearer's pulse rate at the display. The transducer has a piezo-bender element to which a transducer post is affixed, the post being adapted to contact the wearer's skin in the vicinity of an artery. The piezo-bender element is elastically mounted to a housing element that is maintained in firm contact with the wearer's skin, and the physical constants of the elastic mounting are selected to filter out higher frequency components of the forces applied to the transducer post, thereby greatly reducing extraneous noise. Multiple transducer arrays and circuitry are disclosed, which further eliminate noise from the displayed pulse reading.

Claims14

Dependent claims

In a portable pulsemeter worn on the body of a human or animal user, said pulsemeter including:

at least one piezoelectric transducer in which is a piezoelectric element;
housing means for mounting said piezoelectric transducer, said housing means being maintained in substantially stationary contact relative to said body, in the vicinity of a region thereof through which an artery passes, and said piezoelectric transducer being adapted to produce transducer output signals representative of forces, among other things, radial to an artery of said user and produced by said user's pulse beat;
at least one pulse rate monitor which is operated by monitor signals representative of occurrences of the user's pulse beat;
and
means for delivering to said pulse rate monitor monitor signals derived from said transducer output signals, the improvement comprising at least one elastically mounted piezoelectric transducer, in which are:
a transducer post fastened to said piezoelectric element, said post being adapted to firmly contact said body in the vicinity of said artery;
and
at least one elastic mounting connecting said piezoelectric element to said housing means, the physical constants of said elastic mounting being selected to filter out higher frequency components of the forces applied to said transducer post.

5 more elements

A method of piezoelectrically monitoring pulse rate in the body of a human or animal subject, and at the same time decreasing the noise contamination in the pulse rate data and permitting display of the thus noise-decontaminated pulse rate data, which comprises:

(A) providing a monitor containing at least one piezoelectric transducer which
(1) has fastened thereto contact means adapted to firmly contact said body near an artery thereof and adapted to apply to said piezoelectric transducer a force representative of the pulse beat of said artery;
and
(2) is elastically mounted to said monitor by mounting means having physical constants selected to filter out higher frequency components of forces applied via said contact means to said piezoelectric transducer;
(B) providing circuitry means intermediate between said piezoelectric transducer and a display means whereby monitor signals representative of occurrences of said pulse beat are produced and can be fed to said display means;
(C) placing said monitor in substantially stationary contact with said body, near an artery thereof with said contact means in contact with the body;
and
(D) monitoring said pulse beat with said monitor.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.