Patent ID: 8823729

Claim:
A patient monitoring instrument operable in different ambient lighting conditions comprising: circuitry which produces a measure of one or more patient bodily functions; a display, coupled to the circuitry, which displays the bodily function measure in numeric or graphical form; a user interface for selecting one of a plurality of display maps of different contrast, a display controller, coupled to the display and coupled to the user interface, for setting the display to display the bodily function measure in accordance with a selected display map, wherein one of the display maps acts to cause the display of a bright bodily function measure against a dark background, and another of the display maps acts to cause the display of a dark bodily function measure against a bright background; and an ambient light sensor, coupled to the user interface, and configured to sense an ambient light level in which the instrument is operating, wherein the user interface is responsive to a change in the ambient light level above or below a preset or user-adjusted threshold to automatically change the selected display map.