Portable Closed Loop Burn Resuscitation System to Optimize and Automate Fluid Resuscitation of Combat Casualties

Treatment of burn patients with extensive burns (i.e., total body surface area TBSA>20%) is very challenging. Early fluid resuscitation is critical for burn patients and studies show an association between delayed or inadequate fluid resuscitation following burn injury and morbidity and mortality. Acute burns are frequently encountered in combat casualty care as well as in civilian patients. Minimal burn care expertise is present during prolonged transportation of military burn patients and civilian burn patients in rural areas to burn centers. Presently, there does not exist a closed-loop burn resuscitation control system available for clinical use. We propose to develop a closed-loop burn resuscitation system predicated on a hierarchical control architecture. The hierarchical controller architecture is composed of a low-level controller and a high-level, logic-based controller. The low-level controller will regulate cardiac output rate to a desired value by adjusting the fluid infusion rate. The high-level logic controller will monitor the performance of the low-level controller and the patient's vital signs to ensure proper function and to "disengage" the low-level controller if certain performance criteria are violated.