1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wiring harness which conveys electrical signals representing measurements made at a first location to a measuring instrument remotely located from such first location.
2. Background of the Invention
It has been common practice for many years to measure the physiological functions of the human body to determine the health of a patient. This is generally accomplished by attaching electrodes to specific areas so that the functions of particular organs of the body can be determined. For example, it has been common practice to measure electrocardiogram (EKG) signals from a body.
The normal practice for obtaining readouts to form an electrocardiogram has been to adhere electrodes to different portions of the body and then connect each electrode to a wire, which will terminate in an EKG trunk connector. The connector is plugged into a trunk cable which is then attached to the remote measuring electronic instrumentation. The measuring instrument to construct the traditional EKG waveforms for display amplifies the potential differences between pairs of electrodes.
The number of electrodes that may be attached to the human body varies. It depends on the detail of information required from the hardware. In normal clinical practice, between three and ten electrodes may be placed on the body.
It is clear, however, that as the quantity of electrodes is increased, the quantity of EKG wires may become unmanageable. Such wires may often become tangled with themselves. This poses a problem, which can be made worse in a critical care setting, such as in an operating room or intensive care unit of a hospital, where the EKG wires are only one group of many wires going from an electronic instrument such as a monitor to the patient. In this setting, all the cables can get tangled with each other. Accordingly, a lot of skilled nursing time is spent merely untangling the cables.
Previous attempts at improving manageability of EKG wiring harnesses by minimizing tangling include fabricating a plurality of wires in a flat membrane-like multiwire cable where the width of the cable changes with the distance from the measuring instrument. In such an arrangement, each wire of the multiwire cable has its own electrode which provide only a fragile connection and complicates locating the electrode at the correct location on the patient's body.
Also, different types of electrodes have been used to obtain better adherence to the human body. Each such electrode must include a means for connecting that electrode to the monitoring equipment. For example, suction cups have been used as well as self-adhesive cloth containing a metal electrode. In both of these cases, a contact in the EKG wire is then snapped on the metal electrode attached to the self-adhering element. The force required to snap the electrode onto and remove the electrode from the EKG wiring harness can lead to failure in the wiring harness and/or damage to the connector itself.
Another problem is the presence of other electronic equipment, with associated wires and sensors, in close proximity to the EKG wiring harness. Such equipment can cause severe electro-magnetic interference (EMI). In known arrangements, EMI is minimized by using shielded wire, such as coaxial cable, to connect the EKG monitor to the sensors.
Furthermore, in an operating room, electrocautery devices are typically used. An electrocautery device is a surgical knife which is supplied with a relatively high level of radio frequency (RF) current so that blood vessels and other tissues are cauterized and sealed immediately upon cutting. The RF current may be picked up by one EKG sensor, coupled to that sensor wire's shield through the cable capacitance, then to other shields of other sensor wires at a common connection point. The relatively high level of RF current is then supplied to the other EKG sensors where it can cause burns on the patient at the EKG sensor site. Prior art arrangements minimize the conduction of RF energy among the EKG sensor wire shields by providing high potential electrical isolation (on the order of several kilovolts) at least at RF frequencies between respective shields of EKG sensors.
A wiring system which can provide a wiring harness which minimizes the potential for tangling with itself and other wiring harnesses, which minimizes the potential for damage due to connecting and disconnecting the wiring harness to the electrodes, which provides EMI protection and prevents RF burning due to the use of electrocautery devices, is desirable.
A device incorporating the principles of the present invention may include a first cable having an outer sheath with a first diameter. A plurality of coaxial cables is provided. Each of the coaxial cables has a respective outer shield with a diameter substantially smaller than the first diameter of the outer sheath and a respective inner conductor. The coaxial cables are arranged substantially parallel to each other within the outer sheath of the first cable. Also provided are a plurality of first contacts arranged on the outer sheath of the first cable. Each of the first contacts is electrically connected to a respective inner conductor of one of the plurality of coaxial cables.
Other features and objects of the present invention will be made clear from the following description of a preferred embodiment taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
Referring to the drawings and more particularly to
From the cross sectional view of
Arranged on and spaced along the outer sheath 13 of the harness 14 are a plurality of contacts 20. Each of the contacts 20 is connected respectively to the inner conductor of a respective one of the coaxial cables 14. In a preferred embodiment the contacts may be zero insertion force (ZIF) sockets. ZIF sockets have been developed for use with integrated circuits. Such a socket can be opened and closed by means of a lever or screw. The advantages of utilizing such sockets in the preferred embodiment is that they take up little space and can be connected to the external leads of the electrodes making a positive connection with little or no additional force being applied, and can also be removed with little or no force applied. In accordance with principles of the present invention, each ZIF socket is connected through the outer sheath of the cable 13 to the inner conductor of a respective one of the coaxial cables 14 developed by Nicolay.
It can be seen that in the preferred embodiment the outer sheath of the wiring harness 13 is substantially cylindrical and that the coaxial cables 14 contained therein are substantially parallel to each other. However, in other embodiments the wiring harness 13 may have different sheath and conductor spatial arrangements. For example, the coaxial cables 14 may be arranged in a twisted, helix shape, or the wiring harness may be arranged to have a flattened, elliptical cross-sectional shape.
Referring to
In
One skilled in the art will understand, however, that the inner conductor and shield of each coaxial cable 14 may run electrically continuous from the connector 11 to the other end of the wiring harness 13. In this embodiment, the contact 20 is connected to the inner connector of its associated coaxial cable 14 as a tap, as illustrated in the circular insert in FIG. 2.
Other embodiments are also possible, including interrupting the inner conductor of the coaxial cable 14 at the location of the contact 20, in the manner illustrated in the main portion of
When the signals carried by the coaxial cables 14 have only lower frequencies, no further signal processing is necessary. However, when signal frequencies are higher, it may be necessary to provide impedance matching terminations. In the main portion of
In the embodiment described above and illustrated in the insert in
In all the cases described above, the termination networks prevent signal reflections due to impedance mismatches and are especially important at higher signal frequencies. One skilled in the art will understand how to determine the characteristic impedance of the coaxial cables 14, how to design an appropriate termination network and how to connect the termination network to the distal ends of the coaxial cables 14. One skilled in the art will also understand that such a termination network may be a passive or active network.
The net physical result is a plurality of contacts 20 spaced along the outer sheath of the wiring harness in such manner that only small smooth bulges appear in the wiring harness, as is illustrated in
In use, the wiring harness 10 is placed along the body of the patient to be tested and respective electrodes are connected to the contacts 20 spaced along the cable. When all the connections are made, terminals 12 of the trunk cable connector 11 are electrically connected to electrodes applied to the appropriate positions on the body of the patient under test.
The apparatus incorporating the principles of the present invention uses a single cable 13 which is connected from the patient to the monitor 30. The cable 13 is made from a plurality of coaxial cables 14, one of such cables being used for each electrode to be applied to the patient. An impedance matching termination network may possibly be coupled to the coaxial cables. Because of the nature of the coaxial cable it is evident that the outer wire of each such cable can shield any electrical signals appearing on the inner conductor and traveling from the patient to the measuring instrument 30. Because the shields of the coaxial cables remain isolated from each other, filtering circuitry to prevent high level RF power generated by electrocautery devices from appearing at the electrode locations may be included in the EKG system. The zero insertion force connectors 20 are placed at different positions along the cable 13 so that connections to the electrodes applied to the patient can easily be made. These ZIF connectors 20 are attached to the electrodes on the body starting at one end and finishing at the other end so that the cable 13 can snake around the body to each of the electrode sites. In this way a single wiring harness cable 13 is used instead of an individual wires for each electrode.
As illustrated in the drawings, the ZIF connectors 20 for the electrodes are designed in such a way that they become a smooth bulge in the cable. As noted above, this is important so that when the EKG cable becomes tangled with another cable, such as pulse oximetry cable, it can be easily untangled by simply pulling the cable/cables apart. The smooth bulges will easily pass through the tangles from the other cables. It is clear that as the number of required electrodes are increased or decreased depending on the tests to be performed on the patient, an appropriate wiring harness can be arranged incorporating the principles of the present invention so that the overall diameter of the wiring harness 13 can be maintained at a minimum diameter to avoid interfering with the possibility of other cables also being attached to the patient at the same time.
The present invention has been described with respect to a particular embodiment and a particular illustrative example, it is evident that the principles of the present invention may be embodied in other arrangements without departing from the scope of the present invention as defined by the following claims.
The present patent application claims priority from provisional patent application No. 60/408,018 filed on Sep. 4, 2002.
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