Nose-Mounted Eye Drop Alignment Structure
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing eye drop delivery devices are difficult to use, intimidating, and lack efficacy, leading to poor adherence and increased risk of blindness in patients with glaucoma and other eye diseases due to incorrect administration techniques and contamination issues.
Innovation Solution
A secure, stable, and easily manipulated eye drop delivery device that integrates with a standard eye drop bottle, featuring an alignment structure that allows the bottle to be securely positioned on the nose, avoiding the temporal field of view and incorporating an adherence auditing mechanism with electronics for monitoring and alerting medication adherence.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional eye drop bottles are used without alignment structures, then the device is simple and easy to manufacture, but the patient frequently misses the eye and touches the bottle tip to the ocular surface causing contamination
Solution Approach 1:
The device is divided into distinct functional components: an alignment structure with nose-contact surfaces and guide features, a bottle-holding section, and a dispensing tip. This segmentation allows each component to perform its specific function optimally while maintaining overall simplicity
Solution Approach 2:
The alignment structure acts as an intermediary between the patient's nose and the eye drop bottle, providing geometric guidance that automatically positions the bottle tip correctly over the eye without requiring complex active control mechanisms
2Reliability
If existing eye drop delivery devices are designed to improve positioning, then the success rate of instilling eye drops may improve, but the devices become difficult to use and intimidating
Solution Approach 1:
The alignment structure is designed to be self-aligning through geometric constraints and nose-contact surfaces, eliminating the need for complex adjustment mechanisms or skilled operation. The device automatically positions itself correctly when placed on the nose
Solution Approach 2:
The device changes the spatial parameters of bottle placement by providing fixed geometric relationships between the nose-contact surfaces and the bottle-holding section, transforming the administration process from a skill-dependent task to a simple placement action
3Ease of operation
If the bottle is positioned to avoid temporal field of view, then patient anxiety and cooperation issues are reduced, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The alignment structure utilizes asymmetric nose-contact surfaces that naturally guide the bottle to a specific asymmetric position, keeping the bulk of the device away from the temporal field of view while maintaining proper dispensing alignment
Solution Approach 2:
The problem of field of view obstruction is solved by moving the bottle positioning in a different spatial dimension - using the nose as a reference plane to project the bottle position laterally away from the temporal field while maintaining vertical alignment with the eye
4Loss of information
If adherence monitoring electronics are added to the device, then medication adherence can be monitored and alerted, but the device complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
Adherence monitoring electronics provide feedback to both the patient and healthcare provider about medication usage patterns, enabling timely interventions to improve adherence without requiring complex real-time control systems
Solution Approach 2:
Traditional mechanical adherence tracking methods are replaced with electronic sensing and communication systems that can automatically record, store, and transmit adherence data, reducing the need for patient self-reporting and provider follow-up
Data Source
AI summary
An aid for dispensing eye drops to improve adherence. The aid, which may be integrated into an eye drop bottle (10) or be separately attached, aligns the eye drop container to better dispense eye drops, while resting the engagement surface (55) of an alignment structure (50) upon the bridge of a user's nose (80), supporting the eye drop container and not intruding upon the temporal half of the field of view of the user's eye.