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A prototype endoscope for observing inner wall of large arteries was specially designed and evaluated through in vitro and in vivo tests. The purpose of this endoscope is to visualize the inner wall of large arteries, e.g., an aorta, without blocking off the blood stream aiming for the use of an assistive technique for endovascular interventions such as stent-graft placement for aortic aneurysm. The technique newly introduced for this purpose was the use of intermittent high-pressure saline jet synchronized to heart beat (diastolic phase). In the previous studies using commercially available bronchoscopes, we confirmed the validity of the system utilizing this technique [1, 2]. Based on these findings, in this study, we have specially designed a new endoscope with two channels, one for saline discharge and the other for forceps, and evaluated its performance through in vitro and in vivo tests. From the results of in vitro tests using a mock circulation system, it was confirmed that the newly designed endoscope was capable of visualizing a target installed on an inner surface of the mock system. Also confirmed through in vivo tests using swine was that we could observe bifurcation in descending aorta, e.g., left renal artery, without stopping off the blood stream. © 2011 IEEE.

The demand for ubiquitous healthcare monitoring has been increasingly raised for prevention of lifestyle-related diseases, acute life support or chronic therapies for inpatients and/or outpatients having chronic disorder and home medical care. From these view points, we developed a non-conscious healthcare monitoring system without any attachment of biological sensors and operations of devices, and an ambulatory postural changes and activities monitoring system. Furthermore in this study, in order to investigate those applicability to the ubiquitous healthcare monitoring, we have developed a new healthcare monitoring system combined with the non-conscious and the ambulatory measurements developed by us. In patients with chronic cardiovascular disease or stroke, the daily health conditions such as pulse, respiration, activities and so on, could be continuously measured in the hospital, the rehabilitation room and subject's own home, using the present system. The results demonstrated that the system appears useful for the ubiquitous healthcare monitoring not only at medical facility, but also during daily living at home. © 2011 IEEE.

Daily monitoring of health condition at home is important for an effective scheme for early diagnosis, treatment and prevention of lifestyle-related diseases such as adiposis, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. While a number of commercially available devices for home healthcare monitoring are widely used, those are actually cumbersome in terms of self-attachment of biological sensors and self-operation of them. From this viewpoint, we have been developing a non-conscious physiological monitoring system without attachment of any sensors to the human body as well as any operations for the measurement. We developed some devices installed in a toilet, a bath, and a bed and showed their high measurement precision by comparison with simultaneous recordings of ordinary biological sensors directly attached to the body. In order to investigate those applicability to the health condition monitoring, we developed a monitoring system in combination with all of the monitoring devices at hospital rooms and previously carried out the measurements of patients' health condition. Further in this study, the health conditions were measured in 10 patients with cardiovascular disease or sleep disorder. From these results, the patients' health conditions such as the body and excretion weight in the toilet, the ECG during taking the bath and the pulse and respiration rate during sleeping were successfully monitored in the hospital room, demonstrating its usefulness for monitoring the health condition of the subjects with cardiovascular disease or sleep disorder.

金沢大学理工研究域機械工学系, Daily monitoring of health condition is important for an effective scheme for early diagnosis, treatment and prevention of lifestyle-related diseases such as adiposis, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and other diseases. Commercially available devices for health care monitoring at home are cumbersome in terms of self-attachment of biological sensors and self-operation of the devices. From this viewpoint, we have been developing a non-conscious physiological monitor installed in a bath, a lavatory, and a bed for home health care and evaluated its measurement accuracy by simultaneous recordings of a biological sensors directly attached to the body surface. In order to investigate its applicability to health condition monitoring, we have further developed a new monitoring system which can automatically monitor and store the health condition data. In this study, by evaluation on 3 patients with cardiac infarct or sleep apnea syndrome, patients' health condition such as body and excretion weight in the toilet and apnea and hypopnea during sleeping were successfully monitored, indicating that the system appears useful for monitoring the health condition during daily living.

A prototype endoscopic system for observing inner wall of aorta was developed and tested in vivo using swine. The purpose of this system is to visualize the inner wall of aorta without stopping aortic flow for the use of an assistive technique for endovascular interventions such as stent-graft placement for aortic aneurysm. The technique newly introduced for this purpose was the use of intermittent high-pressure saline jet synchronized to heart beat (diastolic phase). For preliminary studies, a commercially available bronchoscope having an outer diameter of 5mm with a biopsy channel was used, and a discharging system for intermittent high-pressure saline jet was constructed using a high-speed solenoid valve and a pressurizing tank. From in vitro tests, it was confirmed that we could obtain sufficient amount of saline jet (about 1ml) within short period of time (about 100 ms) with the driving pressure of 0.1 MPa. Based on these results, we conducted in vivo tests using swine with the body weight of about 30 kg. The tip of the endoscope was introduced from the abdominal aorta and inserted proximally about 30 cm. At this point, the saline jet was discharged (period: 200 ms, driving pressure: 0.2 MPa), and then we could clearly observe the aortic bifurcations during the flushing period. This result strongly suggests an availability of the present method as an assistive technology for the endovascular interventions in aorta.

Daily monitoring of health condition at home is very important not only as an effective scheme for early diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular and other diseases, but also for prevention and control of such diseases. From this point of view, we have developed a prototype room for fully automated monitoring of various vital signs. From the results of preliminary experiments using this room, it was confirmed that (1) ECG and respiration during bathing, (2) excretion weight and blood pressure, and (3) respiration and cardiac beat during sleep could be monitored with reasonable accuracy by the sensor system installed in bathtub, toilet and bed, respectively.

Ubiquitous healthcare is very important subject not only as an effective scheme for early diagnosis of cardiovascular and other diseases, but also for prevention and control of such diseases. For this purpose, we have developed two kinds of non-invasive physiological monitoring systems. One is the systems utilizing furniture and furnishings in home to detect biosignals under daily life, and the other is portable systems for ambulatory monitoring of physiological valuables including blood pressure, cardiac output, posture change, walking speed, and so on.. In this paper, structure and performance of these systems are briefly described.

金沢大学理工研究域機械工学系, We have been developing an endoscopic system for observing inner wall of large arteries. The purpose of this system is to visualize the inner wall of large arteries, e.g., an aorta, without blocking off the blood stream for the use of an assistive technique for endovascular interventions such as stent-graft placement for aortic aneurysm. The technique newly introduced for this purpose was the use of intermittent high-pressure saline jet synchronized to heart beat (diastolic phase). In the previous paper [1], we reported performance of a prototype system using a commercially available bronchoscope having an outer diameter of 5mm with a biopsy channel. A discharging system for intermittent high-pressure saline jet was also constructed using a high-speed solenoid valve and a pressurizing tank. In this study, we tried to introduce a special hood (we call "Hemo-visor") on the tip of the endoscope in order to more clearly observe the target (inner wall of artery). From in vitro tests using a mock circulation system, it was confirmed that the Hemo-visor was highly effective for keeping saline solution around the endoscope tip against the blood stream, and for improving the quality of the picture obtained. © 2010 IEEE.