Surgery – Diagnostic testing – Temperature detection
Reexamination Certificate
1999-03-19
2001-02-20
Hindenburg, Max (Department: 3736)
Surgery
Diagnostic testing
Temperature detection
C600S559000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06190329
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a thermoscan, and more particularly to a thermoscan having voice and infrared communication interface and capable of detecting a patient's heartbeats and illuminating the patient's acoustic meatus to facilitate inspection thereof.
The thermoscan disclosed in the present invention is developed by making improvement to the thermoscan disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/231,543 entitled “A Voice Thermoscan” also filed in the name of the applicant. The U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/231,543 discloses a thermoscan having a main body in which a sensing means, a micro processor, a liquid crystal display, and an electronic erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM) are provided. The sensing means senses an infrared temperature at a body temperature point on a patient's eardrum and sends out a corresponding signal that is sampled and digitized by the micro processor and then operated and compared with corrected data stored in the EEPROM. A confirmed temperature value for the sensed infrared temperature is output to a communication interface that includes voice and infrared transmission means. The voice means enables voice indication of the confirmed temperature value and the infrared transmission means converts the temperature value into an approved communication protocol for transmission and then transmits the temperature data to an external microcomputer or a personal computer.
While the thermoscan disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/231,543 is practical for use, it would be even better if the thermoscan is provided with means for illuminating a patient's acoustic meatus to facilitate inspection thereof without the need of fetching another separate illuminating tool. Furthermore, since the thermoscan is now widely used by general consumers to scan body temperature conveniently, it would be more practical for use if it is provided with other functions, such as detecting a user's heartbeats.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore a primary object of the present invention to provide a thermoscan having voice and infrared communication interface that enables not only digitized and voiced indication of scanned body temperature value at the same time as disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/231,543, but also convenient heartbeat detection. Information about the scanned body temperature and the detected heartbeats can be transmitted to and stored in an externally connected personal computer or microcomputer via the existing infrared transmission means in the thermoscan, whereby a databank for such information may be established to effectively keep family health records for future check and follow-up.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a thermoscan having voice and infrared communication interface that enables not only digitized and voiced indication of scanned body temperature value at the same time as disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/231,543, but also convenient acoustic meatus illumination to facilitate inspection thereof.
To achieve the above and other objects, the thermoscan of the present invention has a main body provided with a single-chip central processing unit to which a temperature sensing circuit, a heartbeat sensing circuit, a bulb driving circuit, a liquid crystal display (LCD), a memory for storing programs, and a communication interface including a voice chip and infrared transmission means are electrically connected. The liquid crystal display and the voice chip together enable visual and voice indication of a scanned temperature value at the same time, and the infrared transmission means enables conversion of a scanned temperature into an approved communication protocol for transmitting the temperature data to an externally connected personal computer or microcomputer. The thermoscan is characterized in that the heartbeat sensing circuit detects a patient's heartbeats from capillaries at the patient's fingers and the detected heartbeats may be shown in the liquid crystal display and/or voiced through the voice chip and stored in the external computer via the infrared transmission means, and that the bulb driving circuit actuates an illuminant in the main body of the thermoscan to illuminate and therefore facilitate inspection of the patient's acoustic meatus.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5211479 (1993-05-01), Coffey et al.
patent: 5246292 (1993-09-01), Gal et al.
patent: 5473629 (1995-12-01), Muramoto
patent: 5873833 (1999-02-01), Pompei
Draco Tech International Corp.
Hindenburg Max
Pro-Techtor Inter-national Services
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