The present invention relates to a measurement indication method and an apparatus thereof and particularly to a method and a display device that provide medical measurement digital values for reference through number and color of lighting lamps.
Medical science advances constantly and health care is an issue most people deem seriously. These days many simple medical measurement instruments such as thermometers, blood pressure meters, fat detection meters and the like are available for people to use themselves. For people to accurately know their own health conditions, aside from knowing how to correctly use the medical measurement instruments, they also have to understand how to correctly judge the measured outcome. The conventional medical measurement instruments, such as R.O.C. patent No. M284356, entitled “Blood pressure meter” indicates merely the measurement result by a digital value through a LCD device. The digital value alone does not inform users whether it is in the normal range. The digital value has to be used in cooperation with other measurement units (such as mmHg for measuring the blood pressure) to become meaningful. Hence to understand a person's physical condition the person has to know the correct measurement method and interpret the measured value. For people who do not have fundamental medical knowledge interpreting the measured value could be baffling, or mistaken interpretation could occur. After people have known how to interpret the measured digital value, they also have to know the normal range of the digital value to understand their physical conditions. People generally have a faster understanding and response to graphics and colors. Different colors give the brain different stimulations to allow people to generate different alerts (such as red color has the longest wavelength and is processed by the brain at a higher priority, thus gives people an alert sense). Hence the perception speed and degree of the brain on a measured digital value is slower and lower than color alteration and intensity variation of lighting lamps. Moreover, displaying merely the measured digital value does not generate instant alert to people who do not have sufficient medical knowledge or perception. Hence there is still room for improvement on the presentation method of the conventional medical measurement instruments in terms of enabling people of no medical knowledge or insufficient perception to quickly understand their physical conditions. This phenomenon of lacking graphic presentation also happens to the measurement of the physiological conditions of other living things (such as measuring the heart beat of cats). It also begs for improvement. R.O.C. patent No. M284890, entitled “Improved digital thermometer” discloses a technique which can generate two colors through a backlight panel to indicate a measured result. It indicates by mixing two colors of light in different ratio of light intensity. As people differ in their sensitivity and perception on colors, they have difficulty to differentiate the measurement variation by seeing the color mixed in varying ratios (such as to differentiate 60% of green light and 40% of red light). The interpretation result of different people could be different. Hence an improvement still is required to simplify the interpretation of measured result.
In view of the conventional medical measurement instruments which indicate only measured digital values without providing easy to understand reference information and unable to allow users who do not have medical knowledge to instantly know their health conditions, the primary object of the present invention is to provide a method to compare measured digital values with theoretical normal digital values and present the compared result in graphics through lighting lamps and also provide a display device to make the measured result easy to understand.
The measurement indication method and apparatus thereof of the invention aim to indicate the difference of a result measured by a medical measurement instrument and a normal digital value according to medical theory. The medical measurement instrument includes at least a measurement element, a power supply, at least one processing unit and a measurement display device, and also may include a user interface, a digital display device and a buzzer alarm. The measurement element aims to measure physiological conditions of living things and send electronic signals to the processing unit. The processing unit issues signals to the digital display device. The buzzer alarm and the digital display device indicate measured result. The digital display device has a plurality indication lamps to generate three or more colored lights. The number and colors of the indication lamps vary according to the difference of the measured digital value and a normal digital value range. Thereby users can easily determine the difference between the measured result and the normal digital value. And the measured digital value can be presented in graphics.
The foregoing, as well as additional objects, features and advantages of the invention will be more readily apparent from the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.
The present invention provides a measurement indication method and an apparatus for implementing the method. The method includes setting a base segment and a plurality of digital value segments at an equal interval; measuring a living thing to get a measured digital value; and controlling a plurality of indication lamps that have three or more colors to indicate relative difference between the measured result that shows the condition of the living thing and a theoretical digital value. The method, first, sets an initial condition by lighting all the indication lamps in a first indication color, and determining a digital value segment which covers the measured digital value; calculates the segment number between the measured digital value segment and the base segment; turns off sequentially the indication lamps of the first color according to the segment number between the measured digital value segment and the base segment until only one set of indication lamp is lighting; in the event that the number of the indication lamps of the first indication color being turned off does not reach the segment number between the measured digital value segment and the base segment, the indication lamps are turned on sequentially to emit light of a second indication color; in the event that the number of the indication lamps being turned on for the second indication color still does not reach the segment number between the measured digital value segment and the base segment, the color light of the indication lamps is changed to a third indication color, and the indication lamps are turned on sequentially to emit the light of the third indication color increasing in number to represent the segment number between the measured digital value segment and the base segment; in the event that the indication lamps can emit light of more than three colors, change of the color continues and repeats the increasing from the beginning until they can represent the segment number between the measured digital value segment and the base segment. Please refer to
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There is no limitation on the number and color of the indication lamps of the invention. The final result can be represented by changing the sequence of the lighting lamps or direct displaying. The digital display device 15 of the medical measurement instrument 1 may be a LCD or a CRT display. The invention further may be adapted for use on various medical measurements, such as heart beat and temperature of animals, blood analysis, microbes measurement and the like used in medical research. By merely setting a normal digital value range and a plurality of digital segments, the invention can indicate the difference of the measured result and the normal digital vale range through lighting number and color of the indication lamps. The digital value segments are generated based on the normal digital value which serves as the initial value, and are generated in an equal difference or ratio.
While the preferred embodiments of the invention have been set forth for the purpose of disclosure, modifications of the disclosed embodiments of the invention as well as other embodiments thereof may occur to those skilled in the art. Accordingly, the appended claims are intended to cover all embodiments which do not depart from the spirit and scope of the invention.
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
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4570226 | Aussedat | Feb 1986 | A |
5486914 | Denove et al. | Jan 1996 | A |
6329926 | Hollander et al. | Dec 2001 | B1 |
6674416 | Kamei et al. | Jan 2004 | B2 |
Number | Date | Country |
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M284356 | Jan 2006 | TW |
M284890 | Jan 2006 | TW |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20090002138 A1 | Jan 2009 | US |