You might not know it, but you might be the next victim of Hypoxia. Hypoxia is the condition wherein the body tissues die because of the lack of oxygen. Hypoxia happens for many different reasons, though all these reasons lead to one result – oxygen is inhibited to mix with blood. Many people died because of Hypoxia although it is an easy disease to cure. All that doctors would have to do is prescribe medications to the patient that will increase the oxygen-carriers in his blood. However, when Hypoxia worsens before it is treated, it can damage the brain or kill the person in just minutes. Sadly, without real-time monitoring of the oxygen-saturation in the blood, the only other way to know the oxygen-saturation in the blood is through laboratory testing of a blood sample obtained from the patient. The tests can take an hour to complete, a length of time that is sufficient to kill the patient waiting for the diagnosis.
Today, the pulse oximeter has become widely used in many hospitals and homes. Buying a finger pulse oximeter for home use has become popular as well. Because of the demand from the consumers, many consumer electronic manufacturers have produced pulse oximeters. The competition has made these manufacturers lower down the price of the pulse oximeter. From a thousand dollar in the past, one pulse oximeter can cost about $100 now; of course, superior-quality pulse oximeters cost more than a hundred bucks. Nonetheless, the availability of affordable and easy-to-use pulse oximeters has empowered many people into keeping their own bodies fit and healthy that even those who don’t have any history of having problems with the oxygen-carriers in their blood are encouraged to own a pulse oximeter as well. Apart from the oxygen-saturation, the pulse oximeter can also monitor and display the speed at which the hear of the person it is attached to is beating.
