Research Projects

Project “UroAlert” proposes to develop novel ambulatory multi-channel urinary bladder volume-pressure monitoring belt for people with urinary bladder dysfunction. Project is motivated from the felt need by the patients undergoing rehabilitation at our center and also from over several years of clinical and research experience in this domain. The design of proposed single channel ambulatory pressure monitoring belt will be adapted from our current two channel urodynamics machine (Rehab UroD) ver01 developed at our Centre for Advanced technology Enabled Rehabilitation (CATER), Dept. of PMR, CMC Vellore. Signal processing algorithms will be written for removing motion artifacts such that recorded ambulatory vesicle pressure represents true bladder wall pressure. Multi-channel impedance and near infrared techniques will be explored separately for the bladder volume measurement. Tomographical reconstruction of urinary bladder will be developed from recorded signals. The design of multi-channel electrical impedance measurement belt (8/12/16-electrodes configuration) will be adapted from our AD5933 based 4-electrode based configuration prototype design. Validation studies for pressure and volume estimation using both techniques has been planned separately against standard urodynamics practices on patients with spinal cord injury. Long-term recording of bladder pressure and volume have also been planned in 10 subjects with spinal cord injury. The proposed device is non-invasive, battery powered and multi-channel in nature. Through this proposal we plan to come-up with the device which can sense the bladder capacity and generate alarm if critical volume and/or pressure has been reached.

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