By Marylou Forbes


Pulse oximeter is a tool to calculate the volume of oxygen present in your blood. Most recent models of these devices like the CMS pulse oximeters has an alarm that triggers when the oxygen level of the user is dropping into a none safe level. The good thing about this device is that, it does not necessarily need to introduce the instrument into your body to start taking tests.

For the device to detect the level of oxygen in your bloodstream it emits two lights, one light is red and the other is infrared and these lights will pass through the hemoglobin of the blood. Every blood has hemoglobin on it which carries oxygen. An oxygenated hemoglobin can absorb more infrared light while letting the red light pass through it. On the other hand, a deoxygenated hemoglobin works in an opposite manner. To calculate the level of oxygenation in the bloodstream, a photoreceptor is added opposite of the light emitter to calculate the oxygenation that is present.

This device is commonly attached in the finger or earlobe where a good blood flow is present. For infants, across a foot can be good place as well. Putting it on a different area where it does not have a good flow can create an inaccurate result.

How the device got its name is very straightforward. Basically, it is just an oxygen meter which if combined is oximeter. It was named on the late 1940s by a British researcher and after that, the device was modified through the years to make sure that the result will be as accurate as possible.

A long time ago, this tool is not that portable as it is today. It is huge and it is not that effective too. Since technology is swiftly improving, they altered the design to make it more manageable, portable and efficient.

The advantage of having this gadget is that it is very cost effective. Having it in the palm of your hand keeps you from rushing into hospitals everytime you want to check if you are still at the level where it is safe. You can just do it in your home without wasting money for frequent check ups.

There are also some other ways to test the oxygenation level of your blood. If you happen to know about ABG Testing, this test can come up with the same result as the oximeter do but works in a different way. The ABG needs to draw a small amount of blood to your body to begin the test and it takes a lot of time too just to gain results.

Even though the device is almost perfect. There are still who are skeptical and said that a florescent light can interfere with the accuracy of the result. To prove it, various experiments have been conducted to confirm the issue and to remove doubts. The results suggest that the light does not really affect or no evidence that it affects the accuracy of the oximeter readings.

It is rapidly adopted nowadays and most hospitals are already using it to their patients specially to those who suffers oxygen starvation. It is now being used as well for pneumonia treatment and preventing neonatal blindness. Overall, the device is very useful, cost effective and can give accurate results in a short amount of time.




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