Abstract: Combination level alarms and alarm persistence for patient monitoring, as well as related methods and apparatus, are disclosed. For a combination level alarm, respective values for multiple physiological conditions are received. A determination is made as to whether the received values satisfy respective alarm criteria for the physiological conditions, and if so, an alarm is raised. An alarm persistence feature involves periodically receiving values of a physiological condition, and determining whether the received values have satisfied an alarm criterion for at least a predetermined portion of a predetermined period of time. If so, an alarm is maintained. Combination alarms and alarm persistence may be implemented individually or together.

Abstract: A hand-held colorimetric device (101) suitable for use by blind or color-blind individuals to determine the color of a surface-under-test (SUT), for example of a fabric, has an aperture (110) which, in use, is covered by the SUT (113) whose color is to be determined. Six LEDs (115A, 115B, 116B, 117A and 117B) arranged in pairs (115A/115B, 116A/116 B, 117a/117B) emitting red/orange, green, and blue light illuminate the SUT and diffuse reflections therefrom containing red/orange, green, and blue spectrum sample values are used to determine the luminous reflectivity and chromaticity values for the color of the SUT. The measured values are compared with colorimetric values of reference surfaces to determine the color of the SUT. The colorimetric device may output the name of the color aurally.