CHAPTER

17
Electronics in Nursing

 Principles of Electronics
 Capacitors
 Transistors
 Transducers
 Common Electric Equipment Used in Patient Care

INTRODUCTION
Use of electronics can be observed in most of the basic and advanced healthcare practices.
Advancement in science in technology has brought the boom in use of electronics in healthcare
practices. One can observe use of electronic thermometer for recording patient’s temperature,
electronic blood pressure monitoring devices. Patients’ bedside automatic monitors can
automatically detect the vital signs, ECG, oxygen saturation, carbon-dioxide saturation, apnea
status of patients etc. These monitors are frequently observed in Intensive Care Units and
Operation Theaters. Recently, use of advanced ventilators and robots in healthcare practices are
new examples of the use of electronics in nursing.
Electronics is that branch of physics and technology which deals with the electrical circuits
involving active components such as diodes, transistors, etc. Active components of an electrical
circuit control the electron flow and are able to amplify weak signals, e.g. battery, transistor, etc. Most
electronic devices use semiconductor components to control electron flow. Before semiconductor
and solid state devices, vacuum tubes were the prime electronic components. Electronic circuits
can be divided into two categories:
1. Analog Circuits: Analog circuits use continuous voltages. They perform amplification, etc. on
continuous signals.
2. Digital Circuits: Digital circuits are those electronic circuits which work on number of discre­te
voltage levels. They are the basis of digital calculators, computers and all modern electronic
instruments.
– Diode: A diode is a two terminal electronic device, made of semiconductor materials, which
has non-linear resistance. The pro­minent feature of it is to allow electric current in one
direction while blocking electric current in opposite direction.
- Diodes are the basic building block of all electronic circuits. Today, most of the diodes
are made of silicon or otherwise ger­manium.
 Textbook of Biochemistry and Biophysics

PRINCIPLES OF ELECTRONICS
Principles of the electronics can be understood by the explanation of the following aspects of
electronics.

VACCUM TUBES
In 1883, Thomson Edison an American inventor noticed in working with his early incandescent
lamps that a small current would pass between the hot filament of the lamp and an additional
electrode sealed inside the tube when additional electrode was made positive. The phe­nomenon
did not occur when the electrode was made negative. This was due to escape of electrons from the
surface of metal. The escape of electrons from the surface of hot metal is known as thermal electron
emission or thermionic emission.

Phenomenon
In the tube, this thermionic emission will result in cluster of electrons around the emitting hot metal
and make escape of other electrons difficult. By placing a valve in the form of a positively charge
plate in the tube, the negatively charged electrons move toward the positive plate, making room
for additional electrons to escape from the hot filament. This action results in a flow of electrons
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or an electric current. If the tube is evacuated of air, the electrons will flow more rapidly from the
emitting filament to the positively charged plate.

Fig. 17.1: Diode tube

Types of Vacuum Tubes

• Diode Tube: The simplest type of vacuum tube is known as a diode because it contains two
electrodes. It consisted of hot filament at one end of the tube from which electron “boil off” by
270 thermionic emission into the tube. At the other end of the tube is a metal plate that is charged
 Electronics in Nursing

positively. Because the metal plate is positively charged, the electrons that are negatively
charged pass from the filament to the plate. The plate can also be negatively charged. When the
plate is negatively charged there is no flow of electrons. A third element can be added to diode
tube to make it into a triode tube (Fig. 17.1).

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Fig. 17.2: Triode tube
• Triode tube: An American inventor Le de Forest developed the triode tube by introducing
third electrode called the grid to the diode tube is usually made of mesh screen and is placed
between the other two electrodes. That is between the cathode and the plate. The grid acts as a
control and modifier of the flow of electrons in the vacuum tube (Fig. 17.2).
– When the grid is made positive it speeds the movement of the negatively charged electrons
thorough it on their path towards the positive metal tube. When the grid is negatively
charged, it slows the speed of the electrons towards the positively charged metal plate.
In this way the grid acts as a regulator and small changes in the electric charge of the grid
produce great changes in the flow of electrons through the tube. Because of this structure,
the triode tube can be used to amplify very small current.
• Multi-element tube: In addition to diode and triode tube multi-elements tubes has been
developed. The simplest of these is the tetrad tube is which another element called a screen is
inserted between plates and grid.
• Pentode tube: Adding still another element a suppressor grid between plate and screen
produces a pentode tube.

Uses
Vacuum tube may be used to produce electrical oscillations to “magnify” weak oscillations millions
of times or to control oscillations. Electronic computers, radar, patient monitoring systems are
important appli­cations of the vacuum tube.
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CAPACITORS
A combination of two conductors placed near to each other is called a capacitor. These two
conductors can be of any shape, e.g. circular, rectangular plates or cylindrical but generally two
parallel conducting rectangular plates are used. These plates are separated by a thin sheet of
insulating material called the dielectric. A capacitor is used in a variety of electronic devices to
produce even voltages. Its prime objective is to store charges.

Working
There is no direct flow of current through the capa­citor because of the insulation between the two
parallel conducting plates. When placed in a circuit one plate becomes charged positively and the
other negatively. The charge on the positive plate is called the charge on the capacitor and the
potential difference between plates is called the potential of the capacitor.
For a given capacitor, the charge Q on the capacitor is proportional to the potential difference
V between the plates, i.e.
Qαv
Q = cv
The proportionality constant 'C' is the capacitance of capacitor. It depends on the shape, size,
distance between the plates of capacitor and the medium between them. Its SI unit is Farad.
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Capacitors stores charges and when a certain force is reached they pass across the insulator,
neutralize each other and break the circuit. After this event, charges rebuild on the plates and the
process repeats (Fig. 17.3).

Fig. 17.3: Diagrammatic presentation of capacitor

Diagrammatic Presentation
• These are the two plates of a capacitor.
• The plate on the capacitor that attaches to the negative terminal of the battery accepts electrons
that the battery is producing.
• The plate on the capacitor that attaches to the positive terminal of the battery loses electrons to
the battery.
• Once it charged the capacitor has same voltage as of battery.
• Here you have a battery, a light bulb and a capacitor. If the capacitor is big what you will notice
is that when you connect the battery, the light bulb will light up as current flows from the
battery to the capacitor to charge it up. The bulb will get progressively dimmer and finally go
out once the capacitor reaches its capacity. If you then remove the battery and replace it with
272 a wire, the current will flow from one plate of the capacitor to the other. The bulb will light
initially and then dim as capacitors discharges until its completely out.
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• Uses of Capacitors: Capacitors are used for several purposes.

– Timing: For example, with a 555 timer IC controlling the charging and discharging.
– Smoothing: For example, in a power supply.
– Coupling: For example, between stages of an audio system and to connect a loudspeaker.
– Filtering: For example, in the tone control of an audio system.
– Tuning: For example, in a radio system.
• Storing energy: For example, in a camera flash circuit.

TRANSISTORS
Although the vacuum tube made many electro medical apparatus possible, scientific researchers
searched for a device to transmit and amplify current that was smaller than vacuum tube.

Properties
• Transistors are solid state semiconductor.
• They are like triode tubes.
• They differ from the vacuum tubes in several ways:
– Require little input.
– Last indefinitely.

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– Considerable amplification.
– They are superior to vacuum tube when space, power are primary factors.
• They can be powered by battery instead of house current and because of their size, instrument
can be miniature. Example, hearing aids.

TRANSDUCERS
In some of the physiologic phenomena measures and records are by nature non-electric for example,
sound, heat or motion. An intermediate instrument is needed in such situations to convert that
physical quantity into equivalent electric quantity and measure accordingly.

Parts and Working

The transducer is an apparatus that convert other forms of energy into electric energy so that they
can be measured.
Before explaining the use of the transducer it is necessary to point out that a purely electronic
system, an arrangement of electron vacuum tubes or transistors by itself would be of no use in
communications. The system must include apparatus to receive stimuli and to emit responses. The
stimulus receiving and response giving devices are input and output transducers (Fig. 17.4).
• An input transducer may be a microphone or a photoelectric cell. Since transducer is an energy
converting device, the microphone converts sound energy into electric energy.
• The output transducer is sometimes known as reproducer because it recreates the stimuli in
its original form but usually on a large scale or in a form more conveniently perceived by the
observer.

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Schematic Presentation

Fig. 17.4: Working of transducer

COMMON ELECTRIC EQUIPMENT USED IN PATIENT CARE

Thermionic Thermometer
One instrument that changes heat to electric energy is the thermionic thermometer (Fig. 17.5).
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Fig. 17.5: Thermionic thermometer

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Fig. 17.6: Working of thermionic thermometer
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Working Principle
Temperature-measuring instrument consisting of two wires of different metals joined at each end.
One junction is placed where the temperature is to be measured, and the other is kept at a constant
lower (reference) temperature. A measuring instrument is connected in the electrical circuit. The
temperature difference causes the development of an electromotive force that is approximately
proportional to the difference between the temperatures of the two junctions. Temperature can
be read from standard tables, or the instrument can be calibrated to display temperature directly
(Fig. 17.6).

Uses
• It depends for its action on a crystal that conducts an electric current. The electric resistance of
the crystal varies with changes in temperature.
• It is used for obtaining temperatures internally or on the surface of body.
• The unit is equipped with a variety of probes for obtaining temperatures.
• The thermonic thermometers offers greater accuracy than clinical mercury thermometer can be
located up to 1.000 ft from the unit and registers the temperature in about 5 seconds.

Patient Monitors

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Patients monitors consist of one or more transducer that are attached to the patient to pick-up
physiologic information.

Working
As stated, the transducer changes the physiologic information into electric energy, which is
then passed through electronic circuits. These circuits amplify the electrical impulses and may
transform them into mechanical energy in the form of a moving stylus that records the patients
pulse temperatures, respirations and blood pressure on a graph (Fig. 17.7).

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Fig. 17.7: Electronic monitors
 Textbook of Biochemistry and Biophysics

Other monitors are equipped to flash lights or ring bells if patient is exceeding certain
physiological limits that have been programmed into the circuits.

Uses
• A apparatus has been reported that during surgery, pick-up impulses from the patient and
converts them into lighted numbers on a visible panel where they can be seen readily by a
surgeon, nurse and anesthetist.
• Cardioscope, it delivers a picture of cardiac activity on a screen in the form of light flick.
• Fetal monitors that reports the condition of fetus during pregnancy, labor and delivery.

Cathode Ray Oscilloscope

It is an important aid to the biophysicist, physiologist and clinician in the study of the electric
potentials in the human body.

Functioning
The basic operation on which the instrument functions is a stream of electrons that are liberated
from a hot filament or cathode. The electron stream in then passed through an anode at a high
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potential and strikes a fluorescent screen at the end of the tube. Whenever an electron strike a
fluorescent screen a spot of light appears (Fig. 17.8).

Fig. 17.8: Cathode ray oscilloscope

Use
The electron stream is deflected from pursuing a straight path by an amplified current that is
received from the part of the body under study. This action current is connected to a pair of
horizontal plates that deflect the electrons vertically and vice versa. The picture produced on the
screen is a pattern of these deflections as the beam sweeps horizontally across the screen. The light
pattern formed may be studied immediately or a photograph may be recorded for future study.

Electron Microscope
276 • It depends upon the properties of electron for its operation.
 Electronics in Nursing

• The ordinary microscopes cannot be used to view objects less than 0.000039 cm in diameter
which is the same in magnitude as the shortest wavelength of visible light.
• Electrons possess a wave property similar to that of light waves. The wavelength emitted
depends upon the voltage with which the electrons are accelerated. Under certain conditions
the wavelength may be 0.05A. This is so much shorter than the shorter wavelength of visible
lights (3,900A) that such minute objects as bateriophage particles have been seen with the aid
of the electron microscope.
• The electron beam is provided by an electron gun. It contains an anode with a small opening to
allow the electrons to pass through. The anode is grounded while the filament is at a negative
voltage of 50,000 or more. There is also a doughnut shaped coil of wire that acts on electrons
like a convex lens, bending them on the object. The electrons beam is altered by the material
by being stopped, retarded or scattered. The electrons beam is then passed through another
electron lens that corresponds to the objective of optical microscope. A third lens magnifies
the image that is then focused on a fluorescent screen where it may be seen or photographed
(Fig. 17.9).

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Fig. 17.9 Electron microscope
• Difference between electron microscope and ordinary microscope:
– Stream of fast moving electrons instead of light rays.
– Coils of wire in place of lenses.
– A fluorescent screen or photographic plate instead of eyepiece.

Diathermy
• The passage of any electric current through tissues will cause heating. To obtain a significant
amount of heat with ordinary low frequency currents it would be necessary to use large 277
amount of current that the tissue would be destroyed. High frequency current however may be
 Textbook of Biochemistry and Biophysics

passed through tissues for a heating effect without causing damage. Diathermy is a means of
producing heat in tissues of the body by use of high frequency electric currents.
• The heat is generated by induction which means it is produced without actual contact of the
electrodes carrying the current within the tissues.
• Diathermy uses electromagnetic waves of higher frequencies than infrared radiations

Uses
• Diathermy has been reported effective in traumatic and inflammatory conditions of the skeleton
for relief of bronchitis and pain of pleurisy.
• Ultra high frequency diathermy may be used for inducing fever. This reaction known as electro
pyrexia is of value in the treatment of general paresis.

QUESTIONS
Q.1: Describe about vacuum tubes.
Q.2: Discuss about common electronic equipment used in patient care.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
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1. Bullock TH. Electroreception, Springer, 2005.

2. Flitter HH, Rowe HR. An Introduction to Physics in Nursing. St Lous: The CV Mosby Company, 1995.
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4. Goyal RP, Tripathi SP. Oncise Physics, New Delhi: Selina Publishers, August 2007.
5. Jackson MB. Molecular and cellular biophysics. New York: Cambridge Publication, 2006.
6. Lal S. Principles of Physics. Ambala: Paedeep Publishers, 2004.
7. Mielczarek EV, Greenbaum E, Knox RS. Biological Physics. New York. American Institute of Physic, 1993.
8. Morris SC. Life’s Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe, Cambridge University Press, 2003.

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