Electroencephalography (EEG) is a well known way of assessing brain function, but because of the great difficulty of applying electrodes to the scalp it is rarely used in clinical practice. In emergency medicine, in particular, being able to evaluate how the brain is doing following a trauma can help prevent a lot of long term neurological damage. To make EEG more practical in such situations, researchers from University of Eastern Finland have developed and tested a new EEG electrode face mask that is easy to put on and can provide fast charting of brain activity.
The mask consists of a flexible polyester film onto which silver ink was applied through screen printing. The 16 hydrogel-coated electrodes make direct contact with the mostly hair-free parts of the face and do not need any additional gel to achieve good contact. The ingredients make the mask MRI and CT compatible, allowing the patient to be quickly moved between different modalities while the brain waves are being monitored. The face mask is disposable and can be used in emergency rooms and maybe even on football field sidelines.
The performance of the electrode set was tested by using various electrical tests, on several volunteers, and in real patient cases. The results were compared to those obtained by traditional EEG methods.
The silver or graphite shielding layer printed to the outer edge of the electrode set was discovered to significantly reduce external interference on the EEG signal. This shielding layer can be easily and cost-efficiently introduced to all measurement electrodes produced with similar methods. Protecting the electrode with a shielding layer is beneficial when measuring weak signals in conditions that contain external interference.
University of Eastern Finland: New EEG electrode set for fast and easy measurement of brain function abnormalities…