Apparatus and method of quantifying hemostasis using oscillations from a transducer immersed in the blood sample

摘要

An apparatus and method of use thereof which quantifies the processes of hemostasis occuring in human blood. The apparatus utilizes an oscillator transducer which is sensitive to changes of viscosity and tensile strength of surrounding blood as coagulation occurs in the latter. An oscillator, which may be excited to oscillate at a natural resonant frequency, is housed within an enclosure designed to accommodate a finite quantity of blood in contact with the oscillator. As hemostasis occurs, the frequency at which the oscillator resonates is impaired. A control and computation system for measurement of the change of frequency is coupled to the oscillator, which counts the number of oscillations of the oscillator transducer during a predetermined time period, and computes the frequency as a function of the known time period and the counted oscillations.