In this pandemic COVID-19 situation, pulse oximeter is an essential device. Ever wondered how this portable device works? Today we will try to understand how a Pulse Oximeter works.
We all know a little bit about Pulse Oximeter. For those who don’t know what a Pulse Oximeter is, it is a device that is used to monitor the amount of oxygen carried in the body. Additionally, it can measure your pulse rate in Beats Per Minute.
Now let’s try to understand why the amount of oxygen in your body is important. Oxygen saturation is a measure of oxyhemoglobin in your blood. The normal value of oxygen percentage is 95 to 100 percent. If it falls, doctors have only three minutes for treatment. Oxygen saturation level less than 92 percent is dangerous for the human body. Thus it is good to know your oxygen level. COVID-19 enters the body through our respiratory systems causing direct injury to a person’s lungs. And the lungs are the place where oxygen enters the blood. So, COVID-19, if entered in our lungs, will cause a fall of oxygen saturation level in your blood which will be detected by Pulse Oximeter.
Now the thing is how Pulse Oximeter works. But before that, we have to know how oxygenated and deoxygenated blood reacts to light. Then it will be a lot easier to understand. Oxygenated blood is the blood that carries oxygen from the lungs to the body and deoxygenated blood carries the carbon dioxide filled blood to the lungs. Oxygenated blood or the blood with a large oxygen level absorbs more IR or Infrared Light and deoxygenated blood with lower oxygen levels absorbs more red light.
A pulse oximeter has a red light and an infrared light on one side of the clip that attaches to your finger. It has a photodetector on another side of the clip. When you turn on the device, it shines those LEDs through your finger and the photodetector detects the amount of red and IR light that is transferred through the tissues. And from these readings, it can detect the oxygen saturation level in our body. It is recommended that you remove nail polish from your nails to get accurate readings.
Now let’s come to the small part. How it detects the BPM. BPM stands for Beats Per Minute. It’s the number of times our heart beats in one minute. When our heart pumps the blood, the blood is more denser than normal. So, less light will be passed through our blood at this time. Pulse oximeter detects that and measures the pulse rate.
That is how pulse oximeter works. Hope you enjoyed this post and learned something new. Keep visiting Swaraj Blogs for more such interesting topics. For suggestions on topics, please comment below. Thank You.
Some of my other technological blogs:
What is resistive touchscreen and how it works
What is capacitive touchscreen and how it works
I have another blog page on self-defense. You may also checkout the first blog of this site at Self defence for everyone.
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