How To Choose A Pulse Oximeter?
A pulse oximeter is a medical device designed to measure the oxygen level in human blood. Portable pulse oximeters that are clipped onto the end of the finger, over the nails to perform its function, it is also known as a finger pulse oximeter. While shopping for your ideal pulse oximeter, there are a few things below you need to look out for.
How To Choose Your Pulse Oximeter?
1. Select one that suit your needs. Larger models which come with better and more complex features are mostly used in public hospitals, while hand-held or portable fingertip pulse oximeters will be better choices for home or sport/fitness usage.
2. Choose one that have been tried and tested by others before. Read their reviews and testimonials for the pros and cons. Do your home work well before investing your money.
3. The price of a pulse oximeter can range from a few hundred dollars to a couple of thousands. You need to figure out your budget and pick one that is within your budget. Do note that it doesn’t always mean an expensive one is a high quality one, though in most cases it is. You need a device which gives you accurate results, reliable oxygen saturation readings and pulse rates.
4. Choose one that is user-friendly or easy to use. You wouldn’t want to get one that takes hours to figure out how to operate, especially you will be operating the device yourself. Make sure the salesman demonstrate and explain to you the way to use it, so that you can start using it right away when you get it home.
5. Get one that offers a full refund if you are not satisfied with the results for at least a reasonable period of time. During this time, you may like to test the pulse oximeter against someone who can manually take your pulse and oxygen saturation measurements to compare the readings and make sure that the one you choose is the most accurate.
Tips:
- If you are getting a pulse oximeter for medical use, make sure that you go for one that is FDA approved.
- If you are buying one online, always research for merchant sites that have best reputation for affordable prices, quick shipping, best warranties and customer service.
Always spend some time to research for a good pulse oximeter, then to waste money to buy one blindly. Hope my tips above will help you in making the right decision.
December 21st, 2011 at 12:20 am
You should explain the benefit of using RPO technology over TPO with pulse oximeters.
Here are some of the benefits using RPO rather then TPO…
Details of technology built into SPO Medical’s Pulse Oximeters…
Reflective Pulse Oximetry (RPO) – Meet the new standard in blood pulse oximetry. Unlike the traditional “Translucent Pulse Oximetry” (TPO), RPO reflects light off the bone as opposed to shining a light through external extremities such as the finger or earlobe.
- 1/50th power consumption
- Highly accurate sensors
- Nail polish / fake nail tolerant
- Aids in reduction of low profusion and motion artifacts
- Readings can be attained from new areas of the body such as the forehead and palm
- Meters are comfortable, compact, and lightweight
- Works on any finger, including an adult thumb
- Unaffected by dark skin tones
AutoSpot™ – Introducing the world’s leading technology in dramatically reducing low profusion in blood pulse oximetry. AutoSpot™ electronically adjusts the intensity of the LED in situations of low profusion while still maintaining battery efficiency. When combined with the patented reflective technique, it makes for unprecedented accuracy.
Proprietary Motion Artifact Reduction – A combination of different technologies within PulseOx™ products compensate for motion artifacts. You will notice that the motion artifacts are substantially less frequent than those of all other oximeters on the market.