Patent ID: 8147433

Claim:
A system for monitoring the compression of the chest of a patient, said system comprising: a chest compression monitor adapted to follow the movement of the chest of a patient undergoing compression, said chest compression monitor comprising an accelerometer adapted to sense upward and downward acceleration of the chest compression monitor, said compression monitor further adapted to output an acceleration signal indicative of the upward and downward acceleration of the chest, said compression monitor housed in a module adapted to be held in fixed relationship to the top of the chest during chest compression without connection to a reference external to the compression module; a computer programmed to process the acceleration signal to determine the depth of chest compression and produce a compression signal indicative of the depth of compression of the patient's chest, said computer further programmed to determining the start of a compression without reference to a signal derived from a source external to the module, and thereafter calculate downward displacement of the chest using the acceleration signal; said computer further programmed to output a compression signal.