All You Need to Know About Pulse Oximeter

The recent Coronavirus pandemic has made” Pulse Oximeter” a household name. It has become a necessity nowadays. But, what a pulse Oximeter is? A pulse oximeter is a medical device that indirectly monitors the oxygen saturation of a patient’s blood or in simple words; it measures the oxygen level in a person’s blood.

We must keep a pulse oximeter handy at home as an emergency medical device so that we can routinely check the oxygen levels, especially of our beloved seniors and can promptly take necessary steps if needed. The pulse oximeter is available in most pharmacies and also you can buy or rent it from an elder care service in Kolkata,

Now, let us focus on how to use the pulse oximeter and what are its purpose and use:

The Pulse Oximeter is a small clip-like noninvasive medical device that can be attached to a body part mostly on a finger to get the readings that show the level of oxygen in our body. Small beams of light pass through the blood in the finger measuring the amount of oxygen. It measures the changes in light absorption in oxygenated or deoxygenated blood.  The main purpose of a pulse oximeter is to check how well your heart is pumping oxygen throughout your body. 

♦   The pulse oximeter is used to monitor the health of individuals with any type of condition such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), Asthma, pneumonia, congenital heart defect etc that can affect blood oxygen levels, especially while they are in the hospital.
It can be used to assess how well a new lung medication is working.
♦   To evaluate if someone needs extra support to breathe properly
♦   Oximeter helps in monitoring oxygen levels during or after surgical procedures  that require sedation and also to evaluate how helpful a ventilator is 
♦   To determine how effective supplemental oxygen therapy is when treatment is new
♦   It also helps in assessing a person’s ability to tolerate increased physical activity
♦   Last, but not least to evaluate whether someone momentarily stops breathing while sleeping like in cases of sleep apnea.

The above-mentioned discussion gives you an overview of the useful medical device pulse oximeter and its various important uses.