Non-Invasive Compartment Syndrome Diagnosis

Compartment Syndrome causes permanent damage to patients who are undiagnosed for more than four hours. Every day, doctors miss the cardinal signs of Compartment Syndrome development after trauma. The lack of an accurate and non-invasive clinical standard for the diagnosis of Compartment Syndrome has led to thousands of amputations and permanent nerve and tissue damage. Our goal was to improve the current gold standard by designing a non-invasive device to quantitatively measure the intercompartmental pressures of the lower leg, the most commonly effected area for patients. For the Kommodo Care system, we used pressure sensors and Wheatstone Bridge strain sensors along a Master Lock 3060DAT strap. SolidWorks 2009 was used for prototype design; the strap is wrapped around the leg to measure intercompartmental pressure at the different compartment locations of the lower leg. The sensor data is sent via a laptop and compiled in MATLAB 2011. Air muscles were bundled to simulate lower leg compartments in testing the efficacy of Kommodo Care. Ultimately, our Kommodo Care system will vastly improve both diagnosis and overall patient care for Compartment Syndrome.