End. Stenow et Pa. Oberg, DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF A FIBEROPTIC SENSOR FOR LIMB BLOOD-FLOW MEASUREMENTS, Physiological measurement, 15(3), 1994, pp. 261-270
A fibre-optic microbending sensor for clinical use in venous occlusion
plethysmography (vop) has been developed. The sensor utilizes the mic
robending principle to detect the volume expansion of a limb following
venous occlusion. This principle is based on the loss of energy in an
optical fibre that undergoes mechanical perturbations. A comparative
study of 10 healthy subjects has been made between the new fibre-optic
sensor and a mercury strain-gauge sensor. Each subject's limb blood h
ow was recorded 10 times. The two sensor types were positioned closely
together on the same limb. The result of the study shows a high corre
lation (r = 0.949) verifying that the fibre-optic sensor's performance
makes it a suitable alternative to the mercury strain-gauge sensor.