Desenvolvimento de métodos não invasivos para monitorar a pressão intracraniana

Abstract

The Intracranial pressure (ICP) is derived from intracranial components, such as brain, cerebrospinal fluid and blood. When the volume of the components, inside the cranial cavity is in normal conditions, the pressure remains constant. However, when there is an intracranial mass, such as a hematoma due to a head injury, this pressure increases when the regulatory mechanisms are exhausted. Elevation ICP must be monitored to indicate the patient physiological conditions, once, high pressure values can lead to coma and even death. Currently, intracranial pressure measurement methods are performed in an invasive and complex manner, leading to the risk of infection, making it essencial to develop a simple, low-cost non-invasive measurement method. Therefore, in this work was developed a prototype of noninvasive measuring of ICP, in vitro, associated with the extensometry and digital image correlation (DIC) techniques, relating the increase of ICP with cranial deformation. In both techniques, it was possible to monitor the increase intracranial pressure over time, relating cranial strains to levels of the internal pressure. From the obtained experimental results was possible to validate a numerical model using finite element method to represent the real models. The methodologies developed will be used to monitor intracranial pressure and identify if there is an increase over time in order to perform the necessary actions in emergecy situations. In addition, it is emphasized that there is a need for adjustmentes in prototypes for in vivo evoluations.