| CPC A61B 8/06 (2013.01) [A61B 8/4227 (2013.01); A61B 8/488 (2013.01)] | 28 Claims |
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1. A blood vessel patency measurement system for assessing peripheral arterial disease (PAD) of a subject, the system including:
an inflatable cuff, wearable on a limb of the subject;
a pump, in fluid communication with the inflatable cuff to inflate the inflatable cuff;
a pressure sensor, in fluid communication with the inflatable cuff to measure an inflation pressure of the inflatable cuff;
a wearable acoustic Doppler blood flowmeter, wearable on the limb of the subject, the flowmeter including:
a wearable carrier, configured to be wearably affixed to a target location on the limb of the subject, the wearable carrier carrying a set of more than two transducers, the set of more than two transducers including:
a first transducer, carried by the carrier, the first transducer configured as an acoustic transmitter having a first location and a first orientation; and
a second transducer, carried by the carrier, the second transducer configured as an acoustic receiver having a second location and a second orientation;
controller circuitry, configured to be located with at least one of the carrier or the inflatable cuff, the controller circuitry configured to:
select the acoustic transmitter and the acoustic receiver from the set of more than two transducers;
control the acoustic transmitter for insonating the subject with an insonation signal at an insonation frequency;
control the acoustic receiver for transducing an acoustic response signal received from the subject in response to the insonation signal; and
control the pump for inflating the inflatable cuff; and
signal processing circuitry, configured to translate the transduced acoustic response signal from the insonation frequency to an audio response signal in an audio frequency range, such that the audio response signal includes Doppler-shift information corresponding to detected blood flow when blood flow is detected by the Doppler blood flowmeter; and
an audio response enhancement signal injection circuit, configured to vary a parameter of an audio response enhancement signal, and to combine the audio response enhancement signal with the audio response signal and enhance perceptibility or detectability of a characteristic of pulsatile arterial blood flow.
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