Brillet Celia Fernandez, Chow Margaret R, Ayiotis Andrianna I, Santina Charles C Della
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD.
Labyrinth Devices, LLC, Baltimore, MD.
Proc Des Med Devices Conf. 2023 Apr;2023. doi: 10.1115/dmd2023-8085. Epub 2023 Jun 4.
Vestibular implants (VI) modulate the rate and amplitude of charge-balanced current pulses to encode head angular velocity or acceleration. When the battery of a VI becomes depleted, stimulation interruptions can cause vertigo. To avoid this, VIs can use alert signals such as vibration and beeping to remind the user to replace the battery. However, in distracting and noisy environments typical of activities of daily life, some patients may fail to hear or feel those alerts, so a physiological signal can be used as an alternate channel for signaling battery depletion. Pauses in the stimulation waveform can be delivered for this purpose, with the length of the pause long enough to be detected reliably by the patient but not so long as to induce dizziness or a vertigo attack. As a guide for the design of a physiologic battery depletion alert system, this study reports the ability of nine long-term, continuous VI users to detect stimulation pauses of various durations. We also show the effect of distraction on patients' detection thresholds and response latencies for detected events.
前庭植入物（VI）通过调节电荷平衡电流脉冲的速率和幅度来编码头部角速度或加速度。当VI的电池电量耗尽时，刺激中断会导致眩晕。为避免这种情况，VI可以使用振动和蜂鸣声等警报信号来提醒用户更换电池。然而，在日常生活活动中典型的干扰性和嘈杂环境中，一些患者可能听不到或感觉不到这些警报，因此生理信号可以用作指示电池电量耗尽的替代通道。为此，可以发送刺激波形中的暂停信号，暂停的长度要足够长，以便患者能够可靠地检测到，但又不能太长以至于引起头晕或眩晕发作。作为生理电池电量耗尽警报系统设计的指南，本研究报告了九名长期连续使用VI的用户检测不同持续时间刺激暂停的能力。我们还展示了干扰对患者检测阈值和检测到事件的反应潜伏期的影响。
