As discussed in the Project tab, we are currently designing a small, customizable, and disposable clinical device to implement our methodology. Check back here later to see the progress in our continuation of this project, and keep your eye out for publication announcements!

For historical purposes, here are the prototypes we had at the end of the first semester!

Ultrasound:

At the top of the screen, you can see the shunt valve reservoir and parts of the proximal and distal catheters. On the bottom lies an M-Mode image. During the beginning of the recording,  the M-Mode image shows all interfaces of the shunt are not moving. About 1 second into the video, the peristaltic pump is switched on to generate pulsatile flow, and this change in flow is easily detectable using the ultrasound transducer!

This is very encouraging – we are working to characterize the changes in flow observed for varying amounts of blockage at various points in the shunt system.

Mechanical Wave Propagation Analysis:

Here is a three dimensional representation of our diaphragm for detecting mechanical waves. It appears and operates similarly to a doctor’s stethoscope, except it uses a piezoelectric material to detect mechanical waves instead of a patient’s heartbeat!

Here’s our electronic stethoscope in action. You can see on the oscilloscope display that we are able to detect mechanical (acoustic) waves generated by a small disk speaker!