摘要 |
A method and apparatus for the non-evasive determination of the cardiac output of a subject by causing the subject to inhale and exhale air via a respiratory tube in a plurality of breathing cycles including normal breathing cycles in which the inhaled air does not receive any significant amount of exhaled air from the preceding cycle, and rebreathing cycles in which the inhaled air receives an end tidal portion of the exhaled air from the preceding cycle, propagating ultrasonic pulses through the air passing through the respiratory tube and computing the flow volume through the tube from the measured transit times of the pulses and determining the carbon dioxide content in the exhaled air during both the normal breathing cycles and the rebreathing cycles to determine the cardiac output of the subject.
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