Medical Rooter Apparatus for Rotating Elongated Instruments
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing medical devices lack efficient methods for rotating, oscillating, or inducing longitudinal movement in elongated medical instruments, which can lead to difficulties in navigating through blockages or tortuous paths within the body.
Innovation Solution
The development of a 'rooter' apparatus that includes a housing, a rotatable element, retention elements, and an actuator, allowing for manual operation to cause elongated medical instruments to rotate, oscillate, or move longitudinally, facilitating their introduction and navigation through the body.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If manual rotation methods are used for elongated medical instruments, then the device structure remains simple, but the efficiency of penetrating blockages and navigating tortuous paths is insufficient
Solution Approach 1:
The rooter apparatus is divided into distinct functional segments: a housing containing a rotatable element, retention elements for securing the medical instrument, and an actuator mechanism. This segmentation allows each component to perform its specific function efficiently while maintaining overall system manageability and relatively simple structure.
2Adaptability or versatility
If elongated medical instruments are advanced through tortuous paths without rotation, then the device structure remains simple, but the ability to navigate complex anatomical paths is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The apparatus enables dynamic rotation of the elongated medical instrument through the actuator mechanism that rotates the retentable element. This dynamic capability allows the instrument to adapt to tortuous anatomical paths by rotating and flexing as needed, significantly improving navigability through complex paths while adding only moderate structural complexity.
3Force
If rotation apparatus is added to medical instruments, then the ability to penetrate blockages improves, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The rooter apparatus generates rotational motion and can produce oscillatory movements that create mechanical vibration effects at the tip of the medical instrument. This vibration enhances the instrument's ability to penetrate blockages by breaking up obstructions and reducing friction, while the vibration is generated through relatively simple rotational mechanics rather than complex vibration generation systems.
Data Source
AI summary
A rooter includes a rotatable element, an actuator for causing the rotatable element to rotate, and a coupling feature for rotatably coupling an elongated medical instrument to the rotatable element. The rotatable element may be at least partially contained within the interior of a housing or another element that remains substantially stationary as the actuator causes the rotatable element to rotate. The rooter may be used with a variety of elongated medical instruments, such as wires, mascerators, needles, drill bits, trocars, catheters, tubes and other elongated instruments that are used to enable or effect medical procedures within the body of a subject. The rooter may be used for a variety of purposes, including, without limitation, the introduction of an elongated medical instrument into the body of a subject or its removal from the subject's body; removing, breaking up, or eliminating obstructions (e.g., blood clots, plaques, etc.) from the body of a subject; and obtaining samples from a subject's body.