Detection and differentiation of brain strokes by comparing the reflection phases with wideband unidirectional antennas

A microwave frequency based differential technique is investigated to detect and differentiate between the two primary kinds of brain strokes namely ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes. A compact unidirectional antenna with wideband operation is designed to build a portable system for this purpose. This investigation is based on the fact that among the two identical halves of human brain, strokes usually occur in one part. An adult human head phantom is modeled with a stroke block in one side while the other half is healthy. Two antennas are placed in front of the two halves of human head. The reflection phases of the stroked head side antenna is collected and compared with those of normal side. From this comparison, the existence of stroked cells can be identified. Moreover, antennas facing the hemorrhagic strokes exhibits higher phase difference than those of ischemic strokes, which can be clearly noted from the best matched second resonance. This compact diagnostic system is validated with results received from various tests involving different stroke sizes and shapes.