What is Medical Equipment and Types of Medical Equipment ?

Medical equipment also known as armamentarium. its is designed to aid in the diagnosis, monitoring or treatment of medical conditions. The development of new advance featured medical equipment helps a patient to easily recover from their disease.
Some of the most commonly used pieces of diagnostic equipment include MRI, ultrasound machines, PET scanners (which use cameras and tracer fluid to produce images of a patient’s internal organs in order to detect signs of cancer or other diseases), CT scanners (which use x-ray sand dye to do the same job as PET scanner)

There are Several Basic Types of Hospital Medical Equipment are :

There are more than 10,000 types of medical devices available. Life support medical equipment is used to maintain a patient’s bodily function. This includes medical ventilators, incubators, anaesthetic machines, heart-lung machines, ECMO, and dialysis machines.

Medical monitors allow medical staff to measure a patient’s medical state. Monitors may measure patient vital signs and other parameters including ECG, EEG, and blood pressure.

Laboratory Medical equipment automates or helps analyze blood, urine, genes, and dissolved gases in the blood.

Diagnostic Medical Equipment  may also be used in the home for certain purposes, e.g. for the control of diabetes mellitus

Therapeutic: physical therapy machines like continuous passive range of motion (CPM) machines

A bio medical equipment technician (BMET) is a vital component of the healthcare delivery system. Employed primarily by hospitals, BMETs are the people responsible for maintaining a facility’s medical equipment. BMET mainly act as an interface between doctor and equipment.

Medical Diagnosis & Medical Equipment

Medical diagnosis is the process of determining which disease or condition explains a person’s symptoms and signs. It is most often referred to as diagnosis with the medical context being implicit. The information required for diagnosis is typically collected from a history and physical examination of the person seeking medical care. Often, one or more diagnostic procedures, such as diagnostic tests, are also done during the process. Sometimes Posthumous diagnosis is considered a kind of medical diagnosis. Medical equipment is designed to aid in the diagnosis, monitoring or treatment of medical conditions. The development of new advance featured medical equipment helps a patient to easily recover from their disease.

1. Medical imaging : Medical imaging is the technique and process of creating visual representations of the interior of a body for clinical analysis and medical intervention, as well as visual representation of the function of some organs or tissues (physiology). Medical imaging seeks to reveal internal structures hidden by the skin and bones, as well as to diagnose and treat disease. Medical imaging also establishes a database of normal anatomy and physiology to make it possible to identify abnormalities. Although imaging of removed organs and tissues can be performed for medical reasons, such procedures are usually considered part of pathology instead of medical imaging.

2. Medical ultrasound : (also known as diagnostic sonography or ultrasonography) is a diagnostic imaging technique based on the application of ultrasound. It is used to see internal body structures such as tendons, muscles, joints, vessels and internal organs. Its aim is often to find a source of a disease or to exclude any pathology. The practice of examining pregnant women using ultrasound is called obstetric ultrasound, and is widely used.

Ultrasound is sound waves with frequencies which are higher than those audible to humans (>20,000 Hz). Ultrasonic images also known as sonograms are made by sending pulses of ultrasound into tissue using a probe. The sound echoes off the tissue; with different tissues reflecting varying degrees of sound. These echoes are recorded and displayed as an image to the operator.

Many different types of images can be formed using sonographic instruments. The most well-known type is a B-mode image, which displays the acoustic impedance of a two-dimensional cross-section of tissue. Other types of image can display blood flow, motion of tissue over time, the location of blood, the presence of specific molecules, the stiffness of tissue, or the anatomy of a three-dimensional region.

Compared to other prominent methods of medical imaging, ultrasound has several advantages. It provides images in real-time, it is portable and can be brought to the bedside, it is substantially lower in cost, and it does not use harmful ionising radiation. Drawbacks of ultrasonography include various limits on its field of view including patient cooperation and physique, difficulty imaging structures behind bone and air, and its dependence on a skilled operator.

3. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) :- Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to form pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes of the body in both health and disease. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, radio waves, and field gradients to generate images of the inside of the body.

MRI does not involve x-rays, which distinguishes it from computed tomography (CT or CAT). While the hazards of x-rays are now well-controlled in most medical contexts, MRI can still be seen as superior to CT in this regard. MRI can often yield different diagnostic information compared with CT. There can be risks and discomfort associated with MRI scans. Compared with CT, MRI scans typically: take more time, are louder, and usually require that the subject go into a narrow tube. In addition, people with some medical implants or other non-removable metal inside the body may be unable to safely undergo an MRI examination.

MRI is based upon the science of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Certain atomic nuclei can absorb and emit radio frequency energy when placed in an external magnetic field. In clinical and research MRI, hydrogen atoms are most-often used to generate a detectable radio-frequency signal that is received by antennas in close proximity to the anatomy being examined. Hydrogen atoms exist naturally in people and other biological organisms in abundance, particularly in water and fat. For this reason, most MRI scans essentially map the location of water and fat in the body. Pulses of radio waves excite the nuclear spin energy transition, and magnetic field gradients localise the signal in space. By varying the parameters of the pulse sequence, different contrasts can be generated between tissues based on the relaxation properties of the hydrogen atoms therein. Since its early development in the 1970s and 1980s, MRI has proven to be a highly versatile imaging technique. While MRI is most prominently used in diagnostic medicine and biomedical research, it can also be used to form images of non-living objects. MRI scans are capable of producing a variety of chemical and physical data, in addition to detailed spatial images.

Positron emission tomography (PET) : is a nuclear medicine, functional imaging technique that is used to observe metabolic processes in the body. The system detects pairs of gamma rays emitted indirectly by a positron-emitting radionuclide (tracer), which is introduced into the body on a biologically active molecule. Three-dimensional images of tracer concentration within the body are then constructed by computer analysis. In modern PET-CT scanners, three dimensional imaging is often accomplished with the aid of a CT X-ray scan performed on the patient during the same session, in the same machine.

If the biologically active molecule chosen for PET is fludeoxy glucose (FDG), an analogue of glucose, the concentrations of tracer imaged will indicate tissue metabolic activity as it corresponds to the regional glucose uptake. Use of this tracer to explore the possibility of cancer metastasis (i.e., spreading to other sites) is the most common type of PET scan in standard medical care (90% of current scans). However, although on a minority basis, many other radioactive tracers are used in PET to image the tissue concentration of other types of molecules of interest. One of the disadvantages of PET scanners is their operating cost.

4. CT scan : A CT scan (often referred to as a CAT scan) makes use of computer-processed combinations of many X-ray images taken from different angles to produce cross-sectional (tomographic) images of specific areas of a scanned object, allowing the user to see inside the object without cutting.

Medical Equipment : Digital geometry processing is used to generate a three-dimensional image of the inside of the object from a large series of two-dimensional radio-graphic images taken around a single axis of rotation. Medical imaging is the most common application of X-ray CT. Its cross-sectional images are used for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes in various medical disciplines. The rest of this article discusses medical-imaging X-ray CT; industrial applications of X-ray CT are discussed at industrial computed tomography scanning.

The term “computed tomography” (CT) is often used to refer to X-ray CT, because it is the most commonly known form. But, many other types of CT exist, such as positron emission tomography (PET) and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). Older and less preferred terms that also refer to X-ray CT are computed axial tomography (CAT scan) and computer aided tomography. X-ray tomography is one form of radiography, along with many other forms of tomographic and non-tomographic radiography.

CT produces a volume of data that can be manipulated in order to demonstrate various bodily structures based on their ability to block the X-ray beam. Although, historically, the images generated were in the axial or transverse plane, perpendicular to the long axis of the body, modern scanners allow this volume of data to be reformatted in various planes or even as volumetric (3D) representations of structures. Although most common in medicine, Medical equipment like CT scanner is also used in other fields, such as nondestructive materials testing. Another example is archaeological uses such as imaging the contents of sarcophagi. Individuals responsible for performing CT exams are called radiographers or radiologic technologists

5. X-ray generator : An X-ray generator is a device that produces X-rays. It is commonly used in a variety of applications including medicine, fluorescence, electronic assembly inspection, and measurement of material thickness in manufacturing operations. In medical applications, X-ray generators are used by radiographers to acquire x-ray images of the internal structures (e.g., bones) of living organisms, and also in sterilization.

Treatment medical equipment : includes infusion pumps, medical lasers and LASIK surgical machines.

1.Infusion pump : An infusion pump infuses fluids, medication or nutrients into a patient’s circulatory system. It is generally used intravenously, although subcutaneous, arterial and epidural infusions are occasionally used.

Infusion pumps can administer fluids in ways that would be impractically expensive or unreliable if performed manually by nursing staff. For example, they can administer as little as 0.1 ml per hour injections (too small for a drip), injections every minute, injections with repeated boluses requested by the patient, up to maximum number per hour (e.g. in patient-controlled analgesia), or fluids whose volumes vary by the time of day.

Because they can also produce quite high but controlled pressures, they can inject controlled amounts of fluids subcutaneously (beneath the skin), or epidurally (just within the surface of the central nervous system – a very popular local spinal anaesthesia for childbirth).

2. Laser : A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The term “laser” originated as an acronym for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”. The first laser was built in 1960 by Theodore H. Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories, based on theoretical work by Charles Hard Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow. A laser differs from other sources of light in that it emits light coherently. Spatial coherence allows a laser to be focused to a tight spot, enabling applications such as laser cutting and lithography. Spatial coherence also allows a laser beam to stay narrow over great distances (collimation), enabling applications such as laser pointers. Lasers can also have high temporal coherence, which allows them to emit light with a very narrow spectrum, i.e., they can emit a single colour of light. Temporal coherence can be used to produce pulses of light as short as a fem to second.

Among their many applications, lasers are used in optical disk drives, laser printers, and bar code scanners; DNA sequencing instruments, fiber-optic and free-space optical communication; laser surgery and skin treatments; cutting and welding materials; military and law enforcement devices for marking targets and measuring range and speed; and laser lighting displays in entertainment.

3. LASIK : LASIK or Lasik (laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis), commonly referred to as laser eye surgery or laser vision correction, is a type of refractive surgery for the correction of myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism. The LASIK surgery is performed by an ophthalmologist who uses a laser or microkeratome to reshape the eye’s cornea in order to improve visual acuity. For most patients, LASIK provides a permanent alternative to eyeglasses or contact lenses.

LASIK is most similar to another surgical corrective procedure, photorefractive keratectomy (PRK), and both represent advances over radial keratotomy in the surgical treatment of refractive errors of vision. For patients with moderate to high myopia or thin corneas which cannot be treated with LASIK and PRK, the phakic intraocular lens is an alternative. As of 2011, over 11 million LASIK procedures had been performed in the United States and as of 2009 over 28 million have been performed worldwide.