Incidence, predictors, and prognosis of thrombocytopenia among patients undergoing intra-aortic balloon pumping in the intensive care unit: a propensity score analysis.

Objective: To explore the incidence, predictors, and prognosis of intra-aortic balloon pumping (IABP)-related thrombocytopenia in critically ill patients.

Methods: This multi-center study used the eICU Collaborative Research Database V1.2, comprising data on > 130,000 patients from multiple intensive care units (ICUs) in America between 2014 and 2015.

Development of adaptive pneumatic tourniquet systems based on minimal inflation pressure for upper limb surgeries.

Background: Pneumatic tourniquets are medical devices that occlude blood flow to distal part of extremities and are commonly used in upper limb surgeries to provide a dry, clean and bloodless field. To decrease pressure-related injuries and potential risk of complications subjected to the high inflation pressure of pneumatic tourniquet, minimal inflation pressures are recommended.

Methods: A new occlusion pressure mathematical model for the upper limb was established based on the correlation analysis between several possible influencing parameters and the minimal pneumatic tourniquet pressure at which the peripheral pulse disappeared was recorded using a digital plethysmograph.

[Interactive guided breathing technology].

Object: Scientific guided breathing technology is to be studied based on the cardiopulmonary interaction.

Methods: Heart rate variability was used as the target function to study the smoothly respiratory relaxation procedure in order to acquire the common pattern of regular and slow breathing.

Results: Music based on the acquired common pattern was created and a musical pattern temporally-related to the breathing movement monitored by a sensor could be chosen to guide the breathing interactively.

[Design of a digital respiratory inductive plethysmography system].

A new type of respiratory inductive plethysmography (RIP) has keen designed based on digital demodulation technique with equal relative error. Compared with former amplitude demodulation, digital modulation RIP can obtain more accurate measurements of respiration and reduce the signal interference and distortion. But the system's power consumption is still a problem which needs to be solved in the future design.