Arcuate Surgical Impactor for Minimally Invasive Joint Socket Placement
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current surgical techniques for implanting joint sockets and artificial joints require larger openings, leading to increased surgical trauma and limited visibility during minimally invasive procedures, making it challenging to accurately position and navigate joint components without causing soft tissue damage.
Innovation Solution
A tool with an arcuate connecting element between the handle and joint socket receiver, providing improved rigidity and reduced mass, along with an expanding mechanism and actuating device, allows for secure positioning and removal of joint sockets and artificial joints while maintaining visibility and minimizing tissue disruption, and a position-determining device using markers and sensors for navigation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Object-affected harmful factors
If conventional surgical techniques are used to implant joint sockets, then good visual monitoring and secure implantation are achieved, but significantly larger openings are required causing increased surgical trauma
Solution Approach 1:
The surgical procedure is divided into two distinct phases: first creating a small access opening for instrument insertion, then using a self-aligning impactor tool to deliver the joint socket through the same opening. The tool itself segments the functions of positioning, alignment, and impact delivery, allowing each function to be optimized independently while working through a minimally invasive approach.
Solution Approach 2:
The impactor tool serves as an intermediary device that bridges the gap between the small surgical opening and the joint socket implant. The tool's connecting element with arcuate portion acts as a mediator that transmits impact forces while maintaining proper orientation, allowing the socket to be delivered through a small opening without requiring direct visual monitoring during the actual impact phase.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If self-tapping screw-in sockets are used for fixation, then anchoring is achieved, but significantly larger openings are required to avoid soft tissue injuries
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of using self-tapping threads that require large openings for safe insertion, the invention inverts the approach by using a press-fit socket delivered through a small opening with a controlled impactor tool. The anchoring mechanism is inverted from active self-tapping to passive press-fit achieved through controlled impact, eliminating the need for large openings that would be required for safe thread engagement.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention converts the potential harm of impact forces into a beneficial controlled press-fit anchoring mechanism. By using a specifically designed impactor tool with arcuate connecting elements, the impact force is transformed from a potentially damaging sharp-edged self-tapping action into a controlled press-fit that achieves secure anchoring through the socket's external geometry matching the prepared bone bed.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If press-fit anchoring is used for minimally invasive surgery, then smaller openings are possible, but additional working space for separate bone screws is eliminated
Solution Approach 1:
The impactor tool is designed with universal adaptability to work with different joint socket types through standardized interface mechanisms. The tool can accommodate various socket geometries and anchoring requirements while maintaining the same minimally invasive approach, making the press-fit method universally applicable across different implant types without requiring separate bone screw procedures.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention merges the functions of positioning, alignment, and impact delivery into a single integrated tool design. The connecting element with arcuate portion combines the positioning function with the impact transmission function, eliminating the need for separate bone screw procedures and consolidating multiple surgical steps into one minimally invasive approach.
4Illumination intensity
If larger openings are created for conventional implantation, then good visual monitoring is achieved, but softer tissue structures are more affected
Solution Approach 1:
The tool incorporates preliminary alignment and positioning mechanisms that ensure proper socket orientation before the actual impact phase. The arcuate connecting elements pre-position the socket at the correct angle and location, allowing the surgeon to achieve accurate placement through a small opening without requiring large openings for extensive visual monitoring during the impact phase itself.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention replaces the mechanical visual monitoring system (large openings for direct sight) with a mechanical guidance system (arcuate connecting elements that provide inherent alignment). Instead of relying on visual confirmation through large openings, the tool's geometry itself provides the mechanical guidance needed for proper socket placement, substituting visual mechanics with geometric mechanics.
Data Source
AI summary
A tool for placing or removing joint sockets of an artificial joint, especially a hip joint, and a tool for placing or removing an artificial joint, has a handle, a joint socket or joint receiver or holder, and a connecting element arranged between the handle and the joint socket or joint holder. The connecting element comprises an arcuate portion in its longitudinal direction. A system for placing and removing joint sockets or joints using such a tool includes a position-determining and navigation device.