“Monitors themselves do not save lives, but the insightful interpretation of the information derived from them can.” —Saul and Ducker Introduction Traumatic brain injury (TBI) in the United States affects…

Introduction The term medical informatics frequently is used to describe systems applied to hospital and physician office record keeping, operations, and regulatory documentation, such as electronic medical records (EMR), computerized…

Introduction Knowing the extent of brain damage in the context of acute cerebral injury can be of paramount importance, especially when the patient is at crossroads, when a decision should…

Introduction History and Background By most accounts the modern era of neuromonitoring began in the 1950s with reports of continuous intracranial pressure (ICP) measurements in humans by Janny et al. ICP…

Introduction Jugular bulb venous monitoring provides information about global cerebral hemodynamics and metabolism and has become an important tool in the clinical management of neurologically injured patients. Other techniques to…

Introduction In times past, tribal medicine men jealously guarded their secret knowledge, typically passing it from father to son, thereby protecting the family’s status and importance. Over the centuries mankind…

Introduction Maintenance of an adequate tissue oxygenation is a fundamental objective in the field of critical care medicine in general, and the assessment of tissue oxygenation is an essential part…

Introduction Cerebral microdialysis (MD) is a well-established laboratory tool that is being increasingly used as a bedside monitor to provide online analysis of brain tissue biochemistry during neurointensive care. MD…

Introduction Frans Jöbsis first described the use of in vivo tissue near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) in the human brain in 1977. The technique is based on the concept that light…