Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 8
Claim 1
Independent Claim
160 words
An ultrasonic Doppler blood flow sensing apparatus: transducer means for sequentially transmitting a plurality of ultrasonic beams towards a vessel of a subject and receiving echoes of said beams reflected from said vessel; Doppler flow measuring means for analyzing said echoes to obtain an instantaneous velocity of blood in said vessel with every beam, a radius of said vessel and an angle between the said ultrasonic beam and said vessel; ECG means for providing an electrocardiographic signal indicating an ECG cycle of said subject; and processing means for: (1) integrating said instantaneous velocity over a predetermined portion of a predetermined number of said ECG cycles and providing a blood flow quantity related thereto, (2) averaging said integrated velocity over the most recently occurring said predetermined number of said ECG cycles to produce an average blood flow quantity and (3) updating said integrating and averaging each of said ECG cycles to produce said average blood flow quantity that is constantly current.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim
160 words
An ultrasonic Doppler blood flow sensing apparatus: transducer means for sequentially transmitting a plurality of ultrasonic beams towards a vessel of a subject and receiving echoes of said beams reflected from said vessel; Doppler flow measuring means for analyzing said echoes to obtain an instantaneous velocity of blood in said vessel with every beam, a radius of said vessel and an angle between the said ultrasonic beam and said vessel; ECG means for providing an electrocardiographic signal indicating an ECG cycle of said subject; and processing means for: (1) integrating said instantaneous velocity over a predetermined portion of a predetermined number of said ECG cycles and providing a blood flow quantity related thereto, (2) averaging said integrated velocity over the most recently occurring said predetermined number of said ECG cycles to produce an average blood flow quantity and (3) updating said integrating and averaging each of said ECG cycles to produce said average blood flow quantity that is constantly current.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
66 words
The blood flow sensing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said processing means generates said average flow quantity Q2 by ##EQU3## where vi: The i th instantaneous average blood flow velocity measurement (cm/s), M: Number of detections of Vi, N: Number of cardiac cycles during a period of time that M detections of vi occurs, Δt: Time interval for detecting the instantaneous average blood flow signal.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
25 words
The blood flow sensing apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising means for displaying said average blood flow quantity in an analog fashion.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
25 words
The blood flow sensing apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising means for displaying said average blood flow quantity in a digital fashion.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim
53 words
An ultrasonic Doppler blood flow sensing apparatus as in claim 1 further comprising gating means, responsive to said ECG means, for generating only at predetermined periods with respect to said ECG cycle a sampling signal to cause said instantaneous velocity from said Doppler flow measuring means to be applied to said processing means.
Claim 7
Dependent Claim
37 words
An ultrasonic Doppler blood flow sensing apparatus as in claim 5 further comprising means for storing said instantaneous velocity from said Doppler flow measuring means for use by said processing means in response to said sampling signal.
Claim 8
Dependent Claim
34 words
The blood flow sensing apparatus according to claim 5 or 6 wherein said gating means further comprises means for controlling the phase and period of said sampling signal in relation to said electrocardiographic signal.