the Tricorder project

I'm an army medic, so the idea of a medical tricorder holds some special interest for me. I was trying to think of what kinds of sensors would be needed and feasible to add. Well one tool we already use is a fingertip pulse oximeter. It measures pulse and oxygen levels, two very important vital signs.

Also, there is an iPhone app which measures pulse using the built in camera.

This may have been mentioned before, but thought I'd mention it just in case.

Had another thought.

There are electronic stethoscopes. And, IIRC, some of the tricorders from the various series had a little detachable sensor thing (a salt shaker was the prop, I think). Working that in would greatly increase the utility of these things.

Also, we have little wrist blood pressure cuffs, little bigger than a bulky wrist watch. If the actual computing was done in the tricorder itself, you could get away with just the air compressor on the cuff itself, reducing its size.

With an electronic stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, and pulse ox, you cover just about all the major vital signs.

Glucometers are also pretty small and would make a great addition.

Trying to figure out how to get some sort of heart monitor or EKG capability in there...

Awesome suggestions - will make sure Peter get's them

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Nerd, Dad, Maker

There's the ECG device that AliveCor made for the iPhone 4. It is basically a hard case with two electrode pads on the back and it communicates with the phone via bluetooth (I believe). The app shows the ECG in real-time and can store and transmit data.

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Yes, I am one of those famous Starfleet Engineers who can cobble together a replicator out of a small pile of spare parts.
(Bonus points if you can identify the reference.)

Whilst trying to research sensors for my own project I came across this, shield for the Raspberry Pi.

http://www.cooking-hacks.com/documentat ... pi-medical

It has 10 different sensors:
Pulse
Oxygen in blood (SPO2)
Airflow (breathing)
Body temperature
Electrocardiogram (ECG)
Glucometer
Galvanic skin response (GSR - sweating)
Blood pressure (sphygmomanometer)
Patient position (accelerometer)
and Muscle/eletromyography sensor (EMG).

However it does state that it is not for monitoring critical patients...

"IMPORTANT: The e-Health Sensor Platform has been designed by Cooking Hacks (the open hardware division of Libelium) in order to help researchers, developers and artists to measure biometric sensor data for experimentation, fun and test purposes. Cooking Hacks provides a cheap and open alternative compared with the proprietary and price prohibitive medical market solutions. However, as the platform does not have medical certifications it can not be used to monitor critical patients who need accurate medical monitoring or those whose conditions must be accurately measured for an ulterior professional diagnosis."