System and method for evaluating neurological function controlling muscular movements

A system for evaluating nervous system function of a subject comprising:

• an accelerometer sensing means for sensing the actual acceleration of a body part of the subject along at least one axis of three-dimensional space,
• a monitoring means operatively associated with said sensing means for monitoring said sensed acceleration,
• said monitoring means measuring the magnitude of the acceleration and comparing said measured magnitude with a control magnitude to evaluate the subject's nervous system function,
• said control magnitude being the magnitude of acceleration of an evoked movement of another body part of the subject spaced from said body part, and
• said sensing means including a sensor which measures mechanical muscle energy of the subject and an attaching means for attaching said sensor to the body surface of the subject.

A system for the intraoperative monitoring of the location of a nerve in a patient comprising:

• a stimulating probe means for stimulating a motor nerve after an incision has been made in the patient and while the patient is under anesthesia during surgery to thereby evoke the movement of a body part of the patient,
• said stimulating probe means using a pulsatile current to stimulate the nerve,
• said current being rectangular pulses,
• an accelerometer sensing means for sensing the magnitude of the stimulated acceleration of said body part stimulated by said stimulating probe means in three-dimensional space,
• said sensing means directly monitoring the muscular response to said stimulated nerve, and
• an audible alarm advising means operatively connected to said sensing means for advising the surgeon when said stimulating probe means is within a set distance from the nerve.

A system for monitoring the status of an exposed, damaged nerve of a patient undergoing surgery comprising:

• a stimulating means for directly stimulating the exposed, damaged nerve at various locations thereon and thereby evoking the movement of a body part of the subject,
• an accelerometer sensing means for sensing the magnitude of the stimulated acceleration of said body part in three-dimensional space to evaluate nervous system function of the subject,
• a comparing means for comparing said sensed magnitude to a control magnitude, and
• a displaying means for displaying said magnitude of stimulated acceleration.

A method for evaluating motor nervous system function of a subject comprising:

• stimulating the nerve of the subject to evoke movement of a body part of the subject,
• measuring the magnitude of the actual evoked acceleration of the body part along at least one axis of three-dimensional space,
• said measuring including said body part being one side of the face of said subject,
• comparing said measured magnitude to a control magnitude to evaluate the function of the motor nervous system of the subject, and
• said comparing including stimulating the nerves of the subject on the side of his face opposite said one side and measuring the magnitude of the actual acceleration along at least one axis of three-dimensional space of the opposite face side evoked by said stimulating of said opposite face side to determine said control magnitude.

A system for evaluating motor nervous system function of a subject comprising:

• an accelerometer sensing means for sensing the actual linear acceleration of a body part of the subject along at least one axis of three-dimensional space of the stationary external world,
• a monitoring means operatively associated with said sensing means for monitoring the magnitude of said sensed accelerations to evaluate the function of the subject's motor nervous system,
• said monitoring means including a selecting means for selecting the time interval over which said monitoring means operates,
• a stimulating means for stimulating the motor nerves of the subject, and
• said monitoring means monitoring the magnitude of the body part acceleration evoked by said stimulating means.

A system for evaluating motor nervous system function of a subject comprising:

• an accelerometer sensing means for sensing the actual acceleration of a body part of the subject along at least one axis of three-dimensional space of the stationary external world,
• a monitoring means operatively associated with said sensing means for monitoring the magnitude of said sensed acceleration to evaluate the function of the subject's motor nervous system,
• said sensing means including a sensor housing, a flexible cantilever filament attached at one end to said housing, a weight attached to the other end of said filament, a distorting means capable of being distorted and attached to said filament, said distorting means being caused to distort and the resistance thereof to be altered by the movement of said housing caused by said body part, and an observing means for observing said altered resistance, and
• an attaching means for attaching said sensor housing to the subject.

A system for evaluating motor nervous system function of a subject comprising:

• an accelerometer sensing means for sensing the actual acceleration of a body part of the subject along at least one axis of three-dimensional space of the stationary external world,
• a monitoring means operatively associated with said sensing means for monitoring the magnitude of said sensed acceleration,
• said sensing means sensing the magnitude of the acceleration serving as an index of the force of said movement,
• said monitoring means monitoring the magnitude of the force of said movements to evaluate the function of the subject's motor nervous system, and
• said monitoring means monitoring the maximum magnitude of the time integral of said force occurring over a testing period.

A system for evaluating motor nervous system function of a subject comprising:

• an accelerometer sensing means for sensing the actual acceleration of a body part of the subject along at least one axis of three-dimensional space of the stationary external world, and
• a monitoring means operatively associated with said sensing means for monitoring the magnitude of said sensed acceleration,
• said monitoring means monitoring force development over a continuous range in the subject who is performing voluntary motor tasks and correlating the resulting information with recordings from the nervous system to investigate the neural control of movement of the subject, and
• said monitoring means including a displaying means for displaying the body part acceleration sensed by said sensing means as a function of time and over said continuous range.

A system for evaluating motor nervous system function of a subject comprising:

• a stimulating means for stimulating the motor nervous system of the subject to thereby evoke movement of at least one body part of the subject,
• an accelerometer sensing means for sensing the actual linear acceleration of the body part evoked by said stimulating means along at least one axis of three-dimensional space of the stationary external world,
• a monitoring means operatively connected to said sensing means for monitoring the magnitude of said sensed acceleration to evaluate the function of the subject's motor nervous system, and
• said monitoring means calculating the integral of the force detected by said sensing means over time.

A system for evaluating motor nervous system function of a subject comprising:

• an accelerometer sensing means for sensing the actual acceleration of a body part of the subject along at least one axis of three-dimensional space of the stationary external world,
• a monitoring means operatively associated with said sensing means for monitoring the magnitude of said sensed acceleration,
• said monitoring means including a comparing means for comparing said acceleration magnitude to a normal value to evaluate the function of the subject's motor nervous system, and
• said comparing means expressing said magnitude as a percentage of said normal value.

A method for evaluating nervous system function of a subject comprising:

• stimulating the nerve of the subject to evoke movement of a body part of the subject,
• measuring the magnitude of the actual evoked acceleration of the body part along at least one axis of three-dimensional space,
• comparing said measured magnitude to a control magnitude to evaluate the function of the nervous system of the subject,
• said comparing including monitoring the location of an unexposed peripheral nerve during surgery.

A method for evaluating nervous system function of a subject comprising:

• stimulating the nerve of the subject to evoke movement of a body part of the subject,
• measuring the magnitude of the actual evoked acceleration of the body part along at least one axis of three-dimensional space,
• comparing said measured magnitude to a control magnitude to evaluate the function of the nervous system of the subject,
• said comparing including locating the sites on the damaged nerve where damage has occurred, and
• said comparing further including evaluating the severity of the damage to said damaged nerve at said sites.

A method for evaluating nervous system function of a subject comprising:

• stimulating an unexposed nerve of the subject to evoke movement of a body part of the subject,
• measuring the magnitude of the actual evoked acceleration of the body part along at least one axis of three-dimensional space,
• comparing said measured magnitude to a control magnitude to evaluate the function of the nervous system of the subject,
• said comparing including intraoperative monitoring of the location of said unexposed nerve, and
• said intraoperative monitoring including alerting the surgeon when his surgical instrument gets too close to said unexposed nerve.

A system for the intraoperative monitoring of the location of a nerve in a patient comprising:

• a stimulating probe means for stimulating an intact nondamaged motor nerve after an incision has been made in the patient and while the patient is under anesthesia during surgery to thereby evoke the movement of a body part of the patient,
• an accelerometer sensing means for sensing the magnitude of the stimulated acceleration of said body part stimulated by said stimulating probe means in three-dimensional space,
• an audible alarm advising means operatively connected to said sensing means for advising the surgeon when said stimulating probe means is within a set distance from the nerve, and
• said sensing means giving an objective measurement to the surgeon of the size of the body part response to the stimulation of the patient's motor nerve by said stimulating probe means.

A system for evaluating motor nervous system function of a subject comprising:

• an accelerometer sensing means for sensing the actual linear acceleration of a body part of the subject along at least one axis of three-dimensional space of the stationary external world,
• a monitoring means operatively associated with said sensing means for monitoring the magnitude of said sensed accelerations to evaluate the function of the subject's motor nervous system,
• a stimulating means for stimulating the motor nerves of the subject,
• said monitoring means including a sensor circuit for processing sensor information from said sensing means,
• said stimulating means including a stimulus circuit for delivering stimuli to the motor nerve controlling said body part, and
• said monitoring means further including a timing circuit for timing both the delivery of the stimuli by said stimulus circuit and the extraction of processed sensor information from said sensor circuit.

A system for evaluating motor nervous system function of a subject comprising:

• an accelerometer sensing means for sensing the actual linear acceleration of a body part of the subject along at least one axis of three-dimensional space of the stationary external world,
• a monitoring means operatively associated with said sensing means for monitoring the magnitude of said sensed accelerations to evaluate the function of the subject's motor nervous system,
• a stimulating means for stimulating the motor nerves of the subject, and
• said stimulating means activating the subject's facial nerve root as it exits his skull below and behind his ear lobe.

A system for evaluating motor nervous system function of a subject comprising:

• an accelerometer sensing means for sensing the actual linear acceleration of a body part of the subject along at least one axis of three-dimensional space of the stationary external world,
• a monitoring means operatively associated with said sensing means for monitoring the magnitude of said sensed accelerations to evaluate the function of the subject's motor nervous system,
• a stimulating means for stimulating the motor nerves of the subject, and
• said monitoring means monitoring the magnitude of the movement electrically evoked by said stimulating means for assessing the severity of damage to the subject's motor nervous system.

A system for evaluating motor nervous system function of a subject comprising:

• an accelerometer sensing means for sensing the actual linear acceleration of a body part of the subject along at least one axis of three-dimensional space of the stationary external world,
• said body part being a small patch of skin generally a few millimeters in diameter,
• a monitoring means operatively associated with said sensing means for monitoring the magnitude of said sensed accelerations to evaluate the function of the subject's motor nervous system, and
• a stimulating means for stimulating the motor nerves of the subject.

A system for evaluating motor nervous system function of a subject comprising:

• an accelerometer sensing means for sensing the actual linear acceleration of a body part of the subject along at least one axis of three-dimensional space of the stationary external world,
• a monitoring means operatively associated with said sensing means for monitoring the magnitude of said sensed accelerations to evaluate the function of the subject's motor nervous system,
• a stimulating means for stimulating the motor nerves of the subject, and
• said monitoring means monitoring the magnitude of the movement electrically evoked by said stimulating means for assessing the severity of damage to the subject's motor nervous system.