Place a horizontal ruler at the patient's iliac crest level with the center crossing over the vertical ruler. Peel the liner off the double-sided tape on the patches. Place additional patches to the left and right of the first two patches so that the patches are bilaterally symmetric.
Raise the head of the exam bed to around 40 degrees and guide the patient to lie down in Fowler's position. Place a vertical ruler along the midline of the abdomen with the three-centimeter mark near the fundus region, determined by manual palpation. Apply a horizontal ruler so that its center is at the six-centimeter mark of the vertical ruler and extends to the left and right lateral along the natural curvature of the abdomen.
Place two square patches below the sixth and seventh patches on the right abdominal surface. Take photos and notes of the patch layout to record the positions of the rulers relative to each other and the patient's umbilicus. After the MRI scan is complete, remove the MRI patches and rulers from the patient and clean the abdomen and back with baby wipes.
Remove the double-sided tape from the patches, disinfect the patches with germicidal disposable wipes, and apply new double-sided tape for the next experiment. Fill the conductive gel to a curved-tip irrigation syringe. To prepare the patches for the bioelectrical mapping and 3D optical scan.
Add the gel into the electrode holder cavities on each electrode batch using the syringe and remove the liners of the double-sided tape. After applying the electrode patches, connect the power and data cords of the 3D optical scanner and open the 3D scanning software. Hold the handheld optical scanner upright with the flashing cameras facing the patient.
Press the Start button on the scanner to start the scanning, and press the Start button again to record the scanning. Move the scanner around the patient to take 3D optical scans capturing the electrode locations. Press the Stop button on the scanner to finish the 3D scanning.
After taking photos and notes of the patch layout, note the positions of the rulers relative to each other and the patient's navel. Place the fore grounding electrodes on the patient in the positions shown on the screen. After connecting the components of the bioelectricity mapping hardware, open the software ActiView on the laptop.
Check the electrode offset mode in ActiView. Click Start File and then Pause to save the bioelectricity signal data streams in real time. After a 900-second recording, click Pause File followed by Stop to finish the recording and to store the multielectrode measurement in a binary data file.
After the last recording, turn off the analog to digital, or A-D box, and disconnect the electrode patches, grounding electrodes, optical fiber, and USB cable. Remove the electrode patches and grounding electrodes from the patient and clean the patient's abdomen and lower back with a towel or baby wipes. This figure represents six successive uterine surface potential maps, 0.2 seconds apart in anterior, left, posterior, and right views.
The respective time of each uterine potential is labeled in the electrogram, which is from the sites indicated with asterisks in the surface potential maps. A region of high positive potential starts at the site marked with an asterisk, enlarges, and finally diminishes. These electromyometrial imaging-generated potential maps alow investigators to visualize the dynamic progression of uterine contractions in three dimensions.
