Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
JOURNAL OF MECHANICS IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY, cilt.12, sa.4, 2012 (SCI-Expanded)
Long-term oxygen therapy (LTOT) is one of the several methods increasing the duration of survival in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), with the oxygen concentrators being the most appropriate and economical choice for this treatment. Studies so far conducted show that a significant amount of oxygen concentrators in Turkey are used wrongly by patients, technical services are inadequate, no periodical maintenance is being done for devices requiring regular maintenance and control, and some devices do not yield the expected oxygen purity in long-term use. These problems in the oxygen concentrators are the most important factors causing delays in the treatment process because the patients are unable to receive oxygen at sufficient purity levels during the scheduled period. Therefore, it has become a necessity that oxygen concentrators are rearranged as devices fulfilling medical requirements and minimizing patient/device-based problems in parallel with the developments in the field of medical electronics. In this study, a low-cost oxygen concentrator with a GPRS-based fault transfer system is designed for patients receiving LTOT and the practical application of this device is realized on a prototype. The most important feature of the designed oxygen concentrator is the ability to detect the fault cases occurred in itself, and then to send them to the related technical service and hospital authority through the GPRS-based fault transfer system without reliance on the patient's statement. This ensures the prevention of delays during the treatment period caused by the functional problems of the device.