ABSTRACT
The emerging trends in the field of medical diagnostic technologies aim to address the challenging requirements for noninvasive monitoring of vital signs in hospital emergency departments, ambulances, hospital intensive and after care units, home care, medical clinics, and nursing homes. The chapter focuses on the challenging signal processing problems in monitoring blood pressure, nonvisible brain traumatic injuries and other brain abnormalities. Intracranial pressure (ICP) monitoring is a critically important diagnostic tool for trauma patients and patients undergoing neurosurgery. Elevated ICP is a pathological state and is an indicator of serious neurological damage and illness. The results from animal experimentations provide a preliminary assessment of the capabilities of a dispersive ultrasound system concept in detecting various cases of brain trauma and brain metabolic effects. The concept of the adaptive auscultatory blood pressure system, has been proven successful in noisy and vibration intensive conditions of helicopters and the test results have been reported in Pinto et al.
