OT: Medical pumps and Daylight Saving

[Jethro_uk]

SWMBO has a pump fitted to deliver timed doses of Baclofen.

Rather annoyingly - despite it being in action for a year - I have no idea whether it "knows" about daylight saving time. It can be programmed to deliver medicine down to a 15-minute resolution so can deliver a custom schedule over 24 hours.

The manual is silent, and the expert at the clinic is off today and tomorrow (or can't speak on the phone).

Reading the printout they supply after each checkup says nothing about time zones (but date is in European format :) )

[Chris Hogg]

I don't understand why you're worried about DST. I assume the pump gives a shot at regular intervals, like every couple or hours or whatever, so whether summer or winter, GMT or HST (Hawaiian Standard Time), it shouldn't matter, surely.

[dennis]

Does it matter what time the doses are delivered?

Year month day should be the standard format.

[Jethro_uk]

"Worried" is too strong a word ... keenly interested might be better.

The thing is the pump has been adjusted to deliver extra "bolus" at key times - currently 02:00 and 15:00 - in tune with the way my wifes symptoms are featuring.

If the pump doesn't know about DST they now occur at 01:00 and 14:00 - which may not fit my wifes lifestyle ....

[Jethro_uk]

Yes. My wife was experiencing problems during the night, and towards the evening. So extra doses were set to be delivered at 02:00 and 15:00. If there's been no adjustment for DST these are now an hour earlier. Whereas my wifes day remains the same (as do all our days under BST).

Er, yes. There's a US standard, and a rest of the world standard. Never forget that.

[dennis]

8<

It depends on what causes the symptoms, if they know what time it is they are odd symptoms. Are they related to meals?

You can always just set the times an hour earlier or change the clock.

[Jethro_uk]

This is multiple sclerosis. So no rhyme or reason - it's nothing to do with digestion, certainly.

Not really a solution if the rest of the UK (yours truly included) unreasonably insists on sticking to BST.

[Roger Mills]

Do your wife's symptoms move with the clock changes, or do they stay at the same absolute times?

If they move, then presumably you need the pump to boost at 02:00 and

15:00 GMT in the winter and at 02:00 and 15:00 BST (01:00 and 14:00 GMT) in the summer - in which case the pump *does* need to know about daylight saving.

If the symptoms stay at the same absolute time 02:00 and 15:00 GMT (say) and 03:00 and 16:00 BST, the pump doesn't need to know.

[The Other Mike]

There is also ISO 8601, a format which is really the only one that makes sense mathematically but possibly not for historians

Those in the US regard ISO anything as 'European'

[Tim+]

I might help if you gave make/model of the pump. Someone else might be using the same one.

Tim

[Jethro_uk]

SynchroMed II from Medtronic ...

We're seeing the specialist tomorrow, so I can ask then and post the response ....

[Brian Gaff]

Is it really that critical? I'd imagine its better to be times between doses than tied to any time in a country. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

That depends on what the cause of the symptoms are of course. I tend to ignore clock time and eat when I'm hungry for example.

Brian

[Jethro_uk]

So, having just got back from a pump review ...

The pumps are completely dumb about time zones and daylight saving. They just clunk on at the schedule set - which in this case was set under GMT.

So the pump is effectively "an hour out".

However because there's a ramp up/ramp down effect from the medicine (baclofen) which spans over 4 hours, the exact timing is considered medically irrelevant.

Time zones *are* important however, and if we were to travel across more than two time zones (e.g. to the US) then the pump would need to be adjusted.

Presumably USains fitted with the pump need to be careful about moving around the US too much.

Next issue: MRI scans and medical pumps :)