The invention relates to a position indicator for a system for moving a patient in a non-invasive therapy system, wherein the system for moving includes a patient support arranged outside a treatment space of a medical apparatus of the non-invasive therapy system, a treatment table arranged inside the treatment space in the medical apparatus, and a patient bed movable in a longitudinal direction from the patient support to the treatment table and back by means of activation of a transferring mechanism, wherein the position indicator comprises a number of light emitting elements arranged in the patient support and each being arranged to receive activation signals instructing a receiving light emitting element to emit light to indicate positions for treatment equipment.

The present disclosure provides communication systems and devices for use in noise environments, such as during magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In some embodiments, a communication headrest is provided that consists of a headrest that supports a patients' head, an optional bone conduction microphone, and one or more vibration actuators. The headset makes contact with noise-isolating earplugs worn by the subject such that vibrations generated by the vibration actuators are transferred through the earplug, via acoustic conduction, to enable the patient to hear audio content while the earplugs provide passive noise protection by occluding the ear canal. In other embodiments, active earplug devices are provided in which an acoustic transducer is contacted and supported by a noise isolating earplug, such that when the earplug is inserted into the ear canal, the acoustic transducer is brought into acoustic conductive communication with tissue surrounding the ear canal, facilitating acoustic communication through bone conduction.

An upper coil assembly for use with a lower RF coil assembly mounted to provide an RF probe arranged to be engaged with a head of a patient in MRI includes a plurality of coil loops arranged in a row defining a phase shift coil array with each coil loop including an independent output conductor for communicating signals to a respective preamplifier for independent amplification and each coil loop including a plurality of capacitors at spaced positions therearound. To decouple the loops each coil loop partly overlaps a next coil loop with a first decoupling capacitor shared on a common portion of each coil loop and each next coil loop. The first and third coil loops are also decoupled by using third decoupling capacitor in a connecting conductor between the first and third coil loops.

A method is for automatic interaction with a patient during a magnetic resonance examination with a magnetic resonance apparatus. In an embodiment, the method includes detecting an acoustic utterance of the patient; processing the acoustic utterance of the patient via a speech processor, the processing of the acoustic utterance including at least determining the communication as a function of the acoustic utterance and checking the communication for a correlation with a parameter of the magnetic resonance examination; determining the output as a function of the communication of the patient and the parameter of the magnetic resonance examination and providing the output. A magnetic resonance apparatus of an embodiment includes at least a processor to carry out an embodiment of the method. The method can further be stored on a computer program product or medium for execution by a processor.

A portable magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system and methods, involving a magnet configured to generate a magnetic field, the magnet being a portable magnet transportable on a cart, and at least one coil assembly disposed in relation to the magnet, the at least one coil assembly having at least one gradient coil.

A radio frequency head coil for a magnetic resonance imaging system is provided. The radio frequency head coil includes a body operative to be disposed on a head of a patient, and an extended lip disposed on the body and operative to receive a magnetic resonance signal. At least some of the magnetic resonance signal is emitted by a region of the patient disposed between a brain stem of the patient up to and including a vertebra of the patient.

A subject support (14) is configured to dock with a medical imaging device (50) with a fixed spatial relationship between the docked subject support and the medical imaging device. A patient positioning device includes a range camera (10) that acquires a two-dimensional (2D) range image of a human imaging subject (12) disposed on a subject support (14). The range image has pixel values corresponding to distances from the range camera. An electronic processor (16) is programmed to perform a positioning method to determine a reference point on or in the human subject in a frame of reference (F.sub.S) of the subject support from the 2D range image. This reference point is translated to a frame of reference (F.sub.D) of the imaging device based on a priori known spatial relationship of the medical imaging device and the docked subject support. Using 3D models, the loading process may be simulated.

The present invention provides a multichannel radio frequency (RF) receive/transmit system (200) for use in an magnetic resonance (MR) imaging system (110), comprising a RF coil array (202) with multiple RF coil elements (204) for emission and reception of RF signals, whereby each RF coil element (204) is provided with tuning means (206), and a tuning/matching circuit (208) for comparing forward power provided to at least one of the RF coil elements (204) with reflected power at the respective RF coil element (204) of the at least one of the RF coil elements (204), and for tuning the at least one of the RF coil elements (204) based on a comparison of the forward power and the reflected power at least one of the RF coil elements (204). The present invention further provides a magnetic resonance (MR) imaging system (110) comprising the above multichannel RF receive/transmit system (200). Still further, the present invention further provides methods for performing magnetic resonance (MR) imaging using the above MR imaging system (110).

A medical imaging system that includes a gantry having an inner bore surface that defines a bore for receiving a patient, wherein a digital display is attached to the inner bore surface of the bore. The system also includes a patient bed for moving the patient into the bore. Further, visual content is displayed on the display that has a calming effect on the patient.

A method is described for positioning of an examination object for an imaging method. The method is used to record an external image of externally visible features of the examination object. The recording of the external image is used as the basis for determining a position and/or orientation of at least one part of the examination object assigned to the imaged features. Subsequently, a check is performed as to whether the determined position and/or orientation of the at least one part of the examination object conforms to a reference position and/or reference orientation. Finally, if the determined position and/or orientation of the at least one part of the examination object does not conform to the reference position and/or reference orientation, the position and/or orientation of the at least one part of the examination object is corrected. Also described is an object-positioning facility. Furthermore, an imaging medical facility is described.