title: Design and evaluation of a fibre-optic sensor for limb blood flow measurements.
abstract: A fibre-optic microbending sensor for clinical use in venous occlusion plethysmography (VOP) has been developed. The sensor utilizes the microbending principle to detect the volume expansion of a limb following venous occlusion. This principle is based on the loss of energy in an optical fibre that undergoes mechanical perturbations. A comparative study of 10 healthy subjects has been made between the new fibre-optic sensor and a mercury strain-gauge sensor. Each subject's limb blood flow was recorded 10 times. The two sensor types were positioned closely together on the same limb. The result of the study shows a high correlation (r = 0.949) verifying that the fibre-optic sensor's performance makes it a suitable alternative to the mercury strain-gauge sensor.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Linköping University, Sweden.
authors.forename: E N
authors.initials: EN
authors.lastname: Stenow
authors.forename: P A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Oberg
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004867:Equipment Design; D005336:Fiber Optic Technology / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D005528:Foot / Q000098:blood supply*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010991:Plethysmography / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D012016:Reference Values; D012039:Regional Blood Flow