Rheoencephalography: A non-invasive method for neuromonitoring

Abstract

In neurocritical care, the gold standard method is intracranial pressure (ICP) monitoring for the patient's lifesaving. Since it is an invasive method, it is desirable to use an alternative, noninvasive technique. The computerized real-time invasive cerebral blood flow (CBF) autoregulation (AR) monitoring calculates the status of CBF AR, called the pressure reactivity index (PRx). Studies documented that the electrical impedance of the head (Rheoencephalography – REG) can detect the status of CBF AR (REGx) and ICP noninvasively. We aimed to test REG to reflect ICP and CBF AR.

Keywords

• intracranial pressure
• pulse wave morphology
• rheoencephalography
• cerebral blood flow
• autoregulation
• breath-holding
• head-down-tilt position
• noninvasive