Date of Award
Fall 1995
Document Type
Dissertation - Restricted
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Biomedical Engineering
First Advisor
Jeutter, Dean C.
Second Advisor
Myklebust, Joel
Third Advisor
Canino, Vincent R.
Abstract
Between 1986 and 1989, a clinical trial was conducted in which eight patients received the Jarvik J7-70 total artificial heart (TAH) as a bridge to transplantation at St. Luke's Hospital of Milwaukee. During this clinical trial, the venous return blood flow data for these eight patients was recorded and permanently stored on floppy disks. The research that will be performed for this dissertation will analyze that venous return blood flow data. The expected contribution will be the development of a method that can be used to predict physiological system changes in patients on the TAH. This ability to predict physiological system changes would greatly enhance the ability to control a T AH. It would also allow for earlier detection of clinical complications not possible with the current monitoring techniques and would provide for more precise assessment of the patient's response to the TAH. To achieve this goal, four objectives will be established. Objective one will be the recovery and reconstruction of the venous return flow signal. The second objective will be the analysis of the recovered data using digital signal processing techniques. Development of a model that could be used to explain the variations seen in the analyses will be the third objective. The final objective will be to determine if there is a correlation among the analyses, the model, and clinically reported complications such as tamponade or pulmonary edema...