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Non-Invasive measurement of physiological parameters in the clinical domain has gained much attention in the recent years due to its painless procedure. It ensures infection free facilities with an extension of real-time clinical monitoring (Kraitlet al., 2013). Specifically several attempts have been made to exploit the human skin tissue properties to measure non-invasively by appropriate design procedure. Most of such applications make use of photo sensors due to the compactness and ability to derive the necessary tissue characteristics. Invasive methods comprise of collection of blood samples through injection and later used to test the blood glucose, haemoglobin, vein related procedures, bilirubin level concentration for detecting jaundice in new-borns. The optical properties of light on tissue level interaction were exploited in most of the non-invasive procedures. Kraitl et al., (2012) have proposal by making use of neon-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy and photo plethysmography. The haemoglobin derivate was discovered based on the absorption co-efficient of blood in the visible and NIR region. Sravani et al., (2013) have proposed a portable subcutaneous vein imaging system. The system comprises of NIR LED’s of 800nm wavelength embedded in the IR web camera. It has been shown that the proposed system was able to locate the various veins and proved to be potential device for intravenous applications like venipuncture and other clinical applications (Sravani et al., 2013).
Understanding of skin reflectance is well motivated by number of clinical application including Bilirubin detection, pulse plethysmography, galvanic skin response, etc (Knussen et al., 1996; Salomatina et al., 2011; Van Gemert et al., 1989; Elli Angelopoulou., 2012;Fallow et al., 2013;Pradhapan et al., 2013). Several studies on the physics of the skin reveal the “w” pattern of the skin with absorption and reflectance capabilities (Elli Angelopoulou., 2012). Being the largest organ of the body, the skin comprises of epidermis and dermis regions. These superficial and inner layers of the skin exhibit various physiological properties. Depending upon the clinical applications, one can measure the reflectance of the skin by the means of the parameter wavelength. These wavelengths can be exploited by means of the chromospheres present in the various layers of the skin (Elli Angelopoulou., 2012).
Bilirubin is a yellowish red pigment that is formed and released in to the blood stream when red blood cells are broken down, this usually severe in case of neonates. Large amount of bilirubin in the blood can lead to jaundice. Jaundice is the most common reason to check bilirubin levels. The level of bilirubin in a newborn’s blood serum is measured to determine if the circulating level of the bilirubin is normal or abnormal. When too much of bilirubin is generated, the excess is discarded into the blood stream and deposited in the skin tissues as temporary storage. Usually in hospitals blood serum are taken to quantify bilirubin of the neonates and in the case of severity the blood serum are taken two to three times a day from neonates. Though there is a transcutaneous method to check the bilirubin level for the neonates, it is expensive not used by many hospitals. This research study brings the non-invasive point of care device for quantifying the bilirubin using the skin reflectance method economically. An evaluation of the proposed system reveals its capability to detect process and display the result in real time with two levels of jaundice indication as normal or critical.
Bilirubin is a yellowish red pigment in the blood stream caused when there is excessive breakdown of red blood cells. Usually bilirubin is excreted in the bile and in the urine when it exceeds certain level. Excessive bilirubin is accumulated in the skin tissue. Two types of Bilirubin are found in the body, they are direct bilirubin (conjugated) and indirect bilirubin (unconjugated). Jaundice is the condition in which the skin and eyes become yellow due to large amount of bilirubin deposition in the dermis layer of the skin. Jaundice occurs in neonates for 2 reasons, the first reason because of the excess breakdown of red blood cells, which results in large amount of bilirubin, the second reason is that, liver of neonate is immature to handle excess bilirubin which is generated and it cannot be processed by neonates. The excessive bilirubin may lead to diseases like Cerebral palsy, Deafness, Kernicterus and may cause death of a new born baby.