In: Nursing
4. a)A patient walks into the emergency room with a nail
embedded in his skull as a result of an accident with a nail
gun.
In order to remove the nail, the doctor first needs to assess the
wound via imaging. A brain MRI is considered for this patient.
Based on the principles of operation of an MRI scanner, discuss if
this is the best option. State an alternative if this is not the
best option. Justify your choice.
b) Give an example of a therapeutic or a diagnostic medical device. How has this device contributed to the medical field?
A typical medical instrument can be represented using eight (8) functional blocks. For the named device, identify any three (3) of the eight (8) blocks. For each of these blocks, discuss the way it functions and the consequences if a malfunction were to occur.
Note:
The device selected must be different from the medical devices
discussed in 4a).
question a)
Answer: The imaging of the brain can be done by MRI. But in this case, it is not the best option. Because there is a presence of the metal nail inside the skull. During MRI, use of magnetic resonance will be used may disturb the nail position location around the area. So the alternative method that can be used is a CT scan of the brain. This can also give the imaging the same as MRI but in this, only x rays are used from different angles to get a clear picture. So I believe that a CT scan is the better option.
Question b)
Answer: A typical instrument which uses 8 block function is ultrasound. The eight-blocks used are transducer, pulser, beamformer, receiver, processor, display, digital storage, hard copy printer devices.
The function of the transducer is helped to convert electrical energy to ultrasound energy. It produces a beam of rays to visualize and get the electrical energy from the body area and form ultrasound energy then transmitted to pulse. If the transducer is not working then there will be no transmission of energy to pulser and no visualization of images.
The pulser takes up the energy from the transducer in the form of voltage. This voltage maintains the output machine of the ultrasound. The changes in the voltage changes the beam intensity to go inside the body. More increase in voltage increase in the beam leads to more clear images. If the pulser in not functioning leads to a lack of uptake the voltage then unclear images will be formed.
Beamformer
The beam former control the beam's intensity, deep, focus, zoom of the image. If the beamformer is not woring then it will not able to control the beam.