Impulse Monitoring Provides IONM Support to University of Virginia Health System Surgeons on Charity Mission to Trinidad

Business Wire, August 5, 2008

COLUMBIA, Md. -- "I can't think of anything more meaningful than to possess a unique expertise and be willing to provide that talent freely to others who are in dire need. This is a notion that is core to our corporate values," said Impulse Monitoring CEO, Gene Cattarina in response to learning of his team's successful support of surgeries in Trinidad performed by orthopedic surgeon, Vincent Arlet, MD and anesthesiologist, Thomas N. Pajewski, MD, PhD. Impulse Monitoring, Inc. (IMI) is a leading provider of intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring (IONM) services to hospitals. IONM assesses neurological function involving the brain, spinal cord and related nerve structures during surgery. Use of IONM facilitates the surgical process and can reduce surgical risk by providing alerts to surgeons of potential harm to the spinal cord or neural structures.

One case was performed at St. Claire Medical Clinic in Port of Spain and involved a 48-year old female with severe spinal stenosis who had several previous surgeries with implant failure. Dr. Arlet removed the implant and inserted new instruments. IMI monitored transcranial electric motor-evoked potentials, or tceMEPs, on the patient to ensure sure everything was working, which was the case. Two additional surgeries were performed at the Princess Elizabeth Rehabilitation Center for Children, also in Port of Spain. One case involved an 18-year old boy with an extremely severe cervical thoracic kyphosis or curvature of the spine. IMI monitored the sensory nervous system on this patient, as well as the tceMEPs. The other case involved a 20-year old female with a severe s-curve idiopathic scoliosis. All three surgeries were successful.

"It was an honor to be invited to work with Dr. Toby at the Princess Elizabeth Centre for Handicapped Children in Port of Spain, Trinidad," commented Dr. Arlet. "Thanks to the support of the Foundation of Orthopaedic and Complex Spine (www.orthofocos.org) our team could achieve successful and safe correction of very challenging spinal deformities. There was nothing more gratifying than to see patients that we had operated from a previous trip being happy, straighter and pain free."

"I was able to visit the spinal clinic at Princess Elizabeth and saw several patients in follow up who were previously operated on by the Trinidad team," said Charlene St. Laurent, CNIM, the IMI neurophysiologist who provided the monitoring services in Trinidad. "It was great to meet these people and see first-hand evidence of the contribution we are making."

"Too often, businesses spend too much time focusing on what they can take, and not enough on what they can and should give. We believe it is important to give back. So it is with great pride and satisfaction that from time to time we lend our support to some of our clients' charitable missions, such as the team from UVA," Cattarina added.

About Impulse Monitoring

Impulse Monitoring, Inc. (IMI) provides intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring (IONM) services to hospitals and other facilities for spinal, nerve and brain-related surgeries. IONM allows early detection of neurological compromise and identification of functional neural structures during surgery. The scope of IMI's service includes neurophysiologists who provide monitoring in the operating room, supported by dedicated real-time, remote physician monitoring. Visit the IMI website at: www.impulsemonitoring.com.