CleveMed Blogs

I remember the story of a biomedical engineer I know. As an undergrad, he planned to graduate, leave school and enter the industry. In the last weeks of class, a professor brought in a patient with a high level spinal cord injury. He demonstrated how FES (functional electrical stimulation) could be used to control weak or paralyzed muscles. When he saw this paralyzed patient move his arms, he was hooked. He went on to graduate with a PhD in biomedical engineering with a focus on rehab engineering.

Biomedical Instrumentation 101: students learn circuit design, how to build an amplifier, data acquisition, signal processing, etc. The concepts are taught; but is there enough emphasis on how this information can be used in applications outside of the classroom? Education in these areas of engineering and physiology is important, but how it can be used in real world applications is just as critical.

CleveLabs is a lab course system that uses wireless data acquisition hardware and interactive software to teach engineering, data acquisition, digital signal processing and basic and advanced physiology. In addition to these customary topics, we also include a section of clinical applications: labs that demonstrate to students where they can apply all that they’ve learned. How about using electro-oculography (movement of the eye) to control the position of a dot on the screen, and control the color of the dot just by blinking? This shows how EOG can be used for computer cursor control, where blinking represents a click, for persons with high level spinal cord injuries. Or what about using electromyography (electrical muscle activity) from the biceps and wrist extensor muscles to control the elbow angle and hand grasp of a virtual robotic arm? This explains how the use of existing muscles can control a prosthetic limb. In addition, heart rate detectors are created, gait and stride time are measured, EEG is used to detect different states of alertness. CleveLabs goes beyond the traditional topics using clinical examples of biomedical engineering applications.

Where can real world examples, such as the story of my friend, take your students?

CleveMed specializes in the manufacture of wireless, subject-worn physiological monitoring equipment. Within the Division of Research and Education systems, a number of wireless data acquisition devices are offered for a variety of applications.

BioCapture is a research system that uses the BioRadio, a wireless data acquisition device for physiological monitoring. The BioRadio can measure any combination of signals such as ECG, EMG, EEG, EOG, respiration, SpO2 and more. Data is telemetered to a receiver connected to a nearby PC. The information is displayed through the software and data can be exported for analysis in third party applications, such as LabView, Matlab or Excel. The BioCapture system is suitable for a number biomedical research applications.

CleveLabs is a laboratory course system that uses the same data acquisition device as BioCapture, the BioRadio. The software is different, in that it is tailored toward students as a laboratory teaching system focusing on engineering, physiology and clinical applications. Biomedical engineering, physiology, electrical & computer engineering and other departments can benefit from this technology. The system is very flexible and can be used in biomedical engineering labs and classrooms, biomedical research applications, physiology labs and research, and more.

KinetiSense is a wireless data acquisition system that measures three dimensional motion using accelerometers and gyroscopes. Linear acceleration and angular velocity are measured from different portions of the body and data is transmitted to a received connected to a nearby PC. The software displays and stores the data and some analysis features are included. An export utility is also included for easy export for custom analysis applications using programs such as LabView, Matlab or Excel.

CleveMed will be attending and exhibiting at the Gait and Clinical Movement Analysis Society’s (GCMAS) 14th Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado. The meeting will be taking place March 9-14.

GCMAS is a society that is made up of orthopedic surgeons, neurologists, developmental pediatricians, physiatrists, physical and occupational therapists, kinesiologists, engineers and many others who are interested in human movement. The professional members of GCMAS are all interested in the advancement of scientific knowledge of gait and human movement analysis in both research and clinical settings.

CleveMed will be showcasing KinetiSense, a compact, lightweight, wireless system for measuring motion and electrical muscle activity (EMG). KinetiSense utilizes a small subject worn device that measures three degrees of linear acceleration and three degrees of angular velocity with accelerometers and gyroscopes. The device also has the option of two channels of EMG for a total of eight channels of data. KinetiSense can communicate in real time with a PC via a Bluetooth^™ radio link or data can be stored in memory. The small size and wireless aspect of the device make the system suitable for a number of research applications, including gait measurement, biomechanics, rehabilitation and any other situation in which movement monitoring and analysis is desired.

A second product on display will be BioCapture, a wireless data acquisition and research system. BioCapture uses the BioRadio 150, a wireless 12 channel programmable physiological monitor. The user can measure up to 8 channels of electrical muscle activity (EMG) on the available programmable inputs. Data is then sent in real time to a PC and displayed and stored using the BioCapture software interface. LabVIEW^™ and MATLAB^® drivers allow the user to write customized interfaces around the BioRadio 150 hardware for real-time acquisition or post processing. Data is also saved in standard ASCII file format for easy import into third party packages, making the system appropriate for a number of custom research applications.

New, innovative, affordable teaching tools are required to train a new generation of researchers for high-tech 21st Century jobs; creating new drugs and technologies to cope with an aging population and understand neurological diseases and processes. CleveLabs^™, an innovative Neuroscience laboratory course with over 30 individual labs was developed to integrate wireless electrophysiology systems with a hands-on learning approach where the students can evaluate their own neurological signals.

Why you should consider CleveLabs:

• CleveLabs Laboratory Course System integrates innovative bioinstrumentation hardware and transducers with hands-on learning through interactive software that educates students on instrumentation, electrophysiology and clinical applications.
• Over 30 lab sessions are laid out in a concise, easy-to-follow format. Each lab includes background information, setup movies, data acquisition and real-time data analysis sections.
• CleveLabs allows Neuroscience programs to rapidly expand laboratories to accommodate larger incoming class sizes, with minimal staff training and without new facilities.
• A personal computer and the lab course kit are the only needed equipment, minimizing the requirements on the department. The compact, wireless system can turn any setting into a laboratory.

This post draws on the experience of several experts at CleveMed and is an adaptation from "A Laboratory Course for Teaching the Peripheral Nervous System using the Students own EMG/Physiological Signals" as presented at The Society for Neuroscience 2008