City Research Online

Abstract

Human body temperature is of vital importance to the well being of the person and therefore it is routinely monitored to indicate the state of the person’s health. Despite the fact that temperature measurement in humans seems so simple, a wide variety of devices are available to record a temperature from skin, oral or rectal mucosa or the tympanic membrane. The choice of clinical thermometers for health professionals and parents has never been so complicated.

This chapter makes an attempt to provide an overview of temperature sensing technologies in medicine. The introductory sections give a brief and general description of temperature and its effect on the human body. A synoptic historical review on the evolution of the thermometer including the clinical thermometer is given in section 3. Section 4 describes the main sensors/transducers used in the development of clinical thermometers, such as thermocouples, thermistors, Resistance Temperature Detectors (RTDs), semiconductor temperature sensors, liquid crystal temperature sensors, and infra-red radiation sensors. These thermometers have been designed and developed for application in various parts of the body such as the rectum, the mouth, the axilla, the esophagus, the bladder, the ear, the temporal artery, the skin, and this will be the content of section 5. It will be almost impossible for this chapter to cover every possible application and evaluation study relating to different thermometers; however an effort is made in section 6 to provide an integrative review of studies comparing selected invasive and non-invasive temperature measurement methods.

Publication Type:	Book Section
Additional Information:	© Momentum Press.
Subjects:	R Medicine T Technology > TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering
Departments:	School of Science & Technology > Engineering

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