Blood rheology measurement device and blood rheology measurement method

• US 20060178580A1
• Filed: 02/03/2006
• Published: 08/10/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 02/09/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Seiko Instruments Incorporated (Seiko Group)
• Original Assignee: Seiko Instruments Incorporated (Seiko Group)
• Inventors: Shinogi, Masataka, Nakamura, Takahiko, Kimura, Fumio, Suzuki, Mizuaki
• Granted Patent: US 7,778,683 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 600/438
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/026 Measuring blood flow A61B3/1233, A61B3/1241 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/489 Blood vessels
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/06 Measuring blood flow measuring volume flow in general G01F, e.g. G01F1/66, G01F1/72; measuring speed of fluids in general G01P5/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30004 Biomedical image processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/0012 Biomedical image inspection
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/70 Determining position or orientation of objects or cameras camera calibration G06T7/80
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/1347 Preprocessing; Feature extraction
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/50 for simulation or modelling of medical disorders

Abstract

A blood rheology measurement device and a blood rheology measurement method which detect a fingerprint or a vein to thereby measure a positional relation between an artery in a living body and a sensor on the same conditions for each subject during non-invasive measurement and which correctly evaluate a change of blood rheology with elapse of time. A vein pattern or a fingerprint pattern peculiar to a subject is detected, recognized, and stored, a position of a sensor is adjusted so that the detected vein pattern or fingerprint pattern agrees with the stored vein pattern or fingerprint pattern every measurement, and a blood rheology index value indicating blood fluidity (fluidity/viscosity) is measured.

Claims

1. A blood rheology measurement device comprising:

detecting means having a sensor unit including an ultrasonic wave sensor section which transmits and receives an ultrasonic wave between the surface of a living body and an artery blood flow in the living body, and an image pickup section which picks up an image of the living body from the living body surface;

image processing means having an image processing section which processes the image obtained by the image pickup section;

an image database which stores the image processed by the image processing means; and

blood rheology measuring means for processing a signal output from the ultrasonic wave sensor section to measure a fluidity of the artery blood flow in association with the image processed by the image processing means,

wherein the detecting means further comprises a driving mechanism which moves a position of the sensor unit,

the image processing means comprises

a database collating section which collates the processed image output from the image processing section with the image stored in the image database and corresponding to the processed image; and

a sensor unit moving circuit which controls the driving mechanism so that the processed image and the stored image collated by the database collating section overlap with each other to move the position of the sensor unit.

2. The blood rheology measurement device according to claim 1, wherein the processed image and the stored image are pattern images of a vein in the living body.

3. The blood rheology measurement device according to claim 1, wherein the processed image and the stored image are pattern images of a fingerprint of the living body.

4. The blood rheology measurement device according to claim 2, wherein the image pickup section includes light emitting means for irradiating the living body with light and image pickup means for picking up an image of an illuminated region.

5. The blood rheology measurement device according to claim 2, wherein the database collating section has an individual authentication function of performing individual authentication by use of the vein and/or the fingerprint.

6. A blood rheology measurement method comprising:

an image pickup step of picking up an image of a living body from the surface of the living body; and

a blood rheology measuring step of measuring a fluidity of an artery blood flow in the living body in association with the picked-up image.

7. The blood rheology measurement method according to claim 6, further comprising:

a storing step of storing the image obtained in the image pickup step.

8. The blood rheology measurement method according to claim 7, wherein the image pickup step comprises:

an image processing step of processing the picked-up image;

a collating step of collating the process image and the stored image; and

a moving step of moving a position of a sensor unit including an image pickup section which picks up the image of the living body from the surface of the living body and a detecting section which detects the fluidity of the artery blood flow in the living body so that the collated processed image and stored image overlap with each other.