Inflatable Ophthalmic Mask with Anti-Reflective Coating
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
In healthcare settings, particularly during eye exams, cross-contamination is a growing concern due to reduced personnel availability for cleaning equipment, especially during flu seasons, necessitating improved hygiene measures.
Innovation Solution
An inflatable mask with optically transparent sections and a concaved inflatable member that conforms to the patient's face, forming air-tight ocular cavities to prevent fluid flow and interface with medical devices like OCT systems, ensuring cleanliness and comfort while stabilizing the patient's position.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If automated healthcare systems are deployed to reduce personnel costs, then productivity increases, but device cleanliness and hygiene deteriorate due to reduced cleaning frequency
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs disposable facial masks that are discarded after a single use or single patient encounter. These masks are made from inexpensive materials and are designed to be single-use items that prevent cross-contamination between patients without requiring complex cleaning or sterilization processes, thus maintaining hygiene in automated healthcare settings where personnel availability for cleaning is reduced.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent utilizes a flexible facial mask that conforms to the patient's face through inflation, creating a barrier between the patient and the medical device. This flexible membrane approach allows for effective contamination prevention while maintaining patient comfort and device accessibility, resolving the contradiction between automated operation and hygiene maintenance.
2Reliability
If a facial mask is designed to conform precisely to patient face contours, then seal effectiveness improves, but device complexity increases due to additional inflation mechanisms
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs a simple inflation mechanism using pneumatic pressure to expand the facial mask and conform it to the patient's face contours. This pneumatic approach creates an effective seal around the patient's face and eyes without requiring complex mechanical adjustment mechanisms, thus achieving reliable sealing while maintaining relatively simple device structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The facial mask transitions from a deflated state during storage and transport to an inflated state during use, dynamically adapting to the patient's unique face shape. This dynamic transformation allows the mask to achieve a customized seal for each patient without requiring multiple pre-formed sizes or complex adjustment mechanisms, resolving the contradiction between seal effectiveness and device complexity.
3Ease of operation
If the inflatable member is made opaque to ensure comfort, then patient comfort improves, but optical transparency for medical imaging deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The facial mask is segmented into different regions with different optical properties: opaque regions covering the patient's face and eyes for comfort and light blocking, and transparent regions at the ocular ports for medical imaging. This segmentation allows the mask to simultaneously provide patient comfort through light blocking while maintaining optical transparency where required for OCT and other imaging procedures.
Solution Approach 2:
The mask employs local quality variation where specific areas (ocular ports) are made transparent to allow optical imaging, while the remainder of the facial covering is made opaque to provide patient comfort and block ambient light. This localized differentiation of optical properties resolves the contradiction between overall opacity for comfort and local transparency for imaging functionality.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The mask effectively maintains hygiene by preventing fluid flow and contamination, provides comfort, and stabilizes the patient's position during exams, enhancing the cleanliness and efficiency of medical procedures.
Implementation Method 1
The rear concaved surface may be configured to conform to contours of the first patient's face with inflation of the inflatable member via the inflation port
Implementation Method 2
The ocular port and the inflation port may be configured to couple with conduit ends on a medical device... introducing air into the ocular cavity or introducing a liquid into the ocular cavity
Data Source
AI summary
A mask for performing an eye exam of a subject includes one or more optically transparent sections for transmitting an incident light beam therethrough and incident on the subject's eye. In some embodiments, the one or more optically transparent sections are coated with an anti-reflective coating configured to reduce reflection of the incident light beam by the one or more optically transparent sections. In some embodiments, the one or more optically transparent sections may have a portion thereof that is tilted with respect to the incident light beam when the mask is optically interfaced with the docking portion of an ophthalmic instrument, such that the incident light beam forms a finite angle of incidence with respect to the corresponding portion of the optically transparent sections.