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ECG Piercings

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If you find yourself in hospital, there's a high chance that you'll be hooked up to a portable wireless ECG. This is basically a battery-powered transmitter, connected to a handful of leads. The leads, in turn, attach to adhesive electrodes stuck to various points on your chest. This gadget allows a nursing station to monitor a crude version of your ECG remotely, and to intervene urgently should needs be.

If they decide to take a more detailed ECG, it is again done using adhesive skin electrodes - just more of them than with the wireless monitoring gadget.

In either case, though, the electrodes tend to come off. This is especially true if you're sleeping, meaning that nurses will come running to reattach your electrodes (or call the morgue) at random times.

So.

If you're going to have body piercings, I suggest having five of them on your chest, in carefully-chosen places. They can have little popper-studs, as are used on ECG electrodes, for robust connection of the leads. Ipso gadulka! the electrode- detachment problem is solved.

Of course, the logical extension is to have a full-featured OBD port fitted in your armpit, but we will leave that for another day.

MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 27 2019

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       // we will leave that for another day. //   

       Why ? It's the way forward.   

       The idea is OK; it simply doesn't go far enough. Having all major organs monitored by wireless technology is much neater.
8th of 7, Nov 27 2019
  

       Does that include tracking, for retrieval after unauthorised harvesting?
pocmloc, Nov 27 2019
  

       You mean do we go and get the bits back and then subject the miscreants to Termination With Extreme Prejudice ?   

       Yes.   

       Think "Repo Men" but with more gratuitous violence and less compassion.
8th of 7, Nov 27 2019
  

       //Having all major organs monitored by wireless technology is much neater// The problem with a human OBD connector is that technology will change. For instance, Sturton drives* a restored 1967 Cadillac Grand Aquarius - top of the line and way ahead of its time, and fitted with Cadillac's "Mission Control" system monitor. It has sensors for 48 different parameters but, thanks to obsolescence caused by the passage of time, the only parameter that can now be read out is "Driver's Side Cupholder Temperature".   

       (*The owner gets furious about this.)
MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 27 2019
  

       "obsolescence" doesn't mean "wearing out"
Voice, Nov 27 2019
  

       No, and the connector in the Caddy is in pristine condition. But finding a machine that can talk to it is now very difficult.
MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 27 2019
  

       //wireless technology//
Anything like this needs to be hard-wired, even if it's "transmit only". Hackers these days will fuck up anything they can get their signals in to...
But I do like the idea of secondary digital monitoring of internal organs.
neutrinos_shadow, Nov 27 2019
  

       Well, in theory you could have:   

       (1) Core temperature
(2) Blood pH, glucose, O2 saturation and various ions (K, Na, CO3...)
(3) ECG data
(4) Nerve conduction data (useful, perhaps in testing for early signs of MS or other neuro problems)
(5) Flow profiles (flow vs time) for major blood vessels
(6) Driver's Side Cupholder Temperature
(7) Kidney output
(8) Blood alcohol
(9) and many more
  

       Many of these could be done with a single implant; obviously others would require their own dedicated sensors.   

       Wired connections have problems in that they create a path through the skin. However, I guess you could use inductive coupling to transmit through skin, but only to a closely- overlying reader.
MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 27 2019
  

       Hey [neut], we have a special Black Friday offer on Assimilation coming up ...
8th of 7, Nov 27 2019
  

       I think the idea is pretty dern funny. I like it. But Max, won't all this electricity wreck havoc on your locater computer chip that your owner had implanted the day you were adopted out? hahahaha...
blissmiss, Nov 27 2019
  

       I'd forgotten I had that chip. Dang, that explains why I keep hearing local radio coming out of my shoulder.
MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 27 2019
  

       1,2,5 &8 could be a single device located somewhere unobtrusive (unobstructive) in the blood system. Presumably for ECG you’d need electrical sensors on or near the heart, which is problematic. Neurological stuff is going to be even more problematic.   

       I like the original idea of external (transdermal?) ECG terminals.   

       I think the idea of an implantable/injectable device that measures a wide range of parameters (and communicates them to an external terminal) is brilliant. Real-Time Condition monitoring for health.   

       There are presumably a very large range of parameters that could be measured. Is there bulk data that could be used to correlate these against illnesses?
Frankx, Nov 27 2019
  

       //offer on Assimilation//
Tempting, but I suspect there would be operating-system incompatibilities. My mind (not to mention the rest of me) doesn't work quite like other peoples. Connecting me to the Collective would be like clicking on a "Download This Free Viewer!" banner ad.
neutrinos_shadow, Nov 27 2019
  

       //Presumably for ECG you’d need electrical sensors on or near the heart, which is problematic// No, not really. Regular ECG uses electrodes stuck onto the skin of the chest. Simple piercings would give at least as good a signal - my understanding is that the skin grows to form a "tunnel" around the piercing, so the connectivity is similar to an electrode stuck to the skin. If you were going to be hard-wired for ECG, you'd have electrodes implanted under the skin, but not necessarily any closer to the heart - you'd get a big advantage from bypassing the resistance of the skin itself. Of course, electrodes implanted closer to the heart would probably give even better data   

       //Neurological stuff is going to be even more problematic.// Yes, ish. You could pick a large, accessible nerve (such as the one that runs down to your big toe); you're actually talking about a large bundle of individual nerves, with a surrounding sheath. With two pickups (thigh and calf, say) you could measure the time taken for an impulse to propagate a fixed distance, and the pulse strength at each point. I think that would let you detect things like demyelinization in MS, say.   

       //There are presumably a very large range of parameters that could be measured// Indeed there is. I guess the only limitation is what kind of data is used/useable in diagnostics. Might be handy to have a realtime cortisol sensor, for instance, and I guess diagnosticians would learn to use the data if it were available. "House, his driver's side cupholder is running a little hot. Should we test for lupus?"
MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 27 2019
  

       //offer on Assimilation// I am not having my ass immolated at any price.
MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 28 2019
  

       //A 12-lead ECG would need lot of piercings // Yes, but you do get full surround-sound.
MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 28 2019
  

       ... including a subwoofer.   

       // I am not having my ass immolated at any price //   

       Oh, we must have misheard ... so what exactly was it that you offered those two rather attractive Ukrainian ladies so much money to do to you ?
8th of 7, Nov 28 2019
  

       [runs for dictionary to look up "immolated" before saying a word.]
blissmiss, Nov 28 2019
  

       "kill or offer as a sacrifice, especially by burning." per Google
blissmiss, Nov 28 2019
  
      
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