Split Convective Warming Blanket for Selective Surgical Access
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current full body convective warming blankets require multiple half body blankets and warmers during surgical operations, making access to specific body areas cumbersome and inefficient.
Innovation Solution
A full body convective warming blanket with removable longitudinal portions connected by a bonded strip featuring a discontinuous slit or tearable line, allowing selective exposure of body areas while maintaining overall body coverage and air circulation for temperature regulation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If multiple half body blankets are used to cover different body areas during surgery, then access to specific body areas is possible, but the device complexity and number of components increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple half-body blankets into a single full-body blanket with removable longitudinal portions. The blanket includes an upper portion and two longitudinal portions that can be selectively removed, merging the functionality of multiple separate blankets into one integrated device that reduces complexity while maintaining adaptability.
Solution Approach 2:
The full-body blanket is segmented into removable longitudinal portions that can be selectively detached along bonded strips with discontinuous slits. This segmentation allows clinicians to access specific body areas by removing only the necessary portions while keeping the rest of the blanket in place, maintaining versatility without requiring multiple separate blankets.
2Ease of operation
If the entire blanket is removed to access a body area, then complete access is achieved, but patient temperature maintenance is compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The blanket is divided into removable longitudinal portions that can be selectively detached to expose only the specific body area needed for surgery. This segmentation allows clinicians to access body areas while leaving the remaining portions of the blanket in place to maintain patient temperature, avoiding the need to remove the entire blanket.
Solution Approach 2:
The blanket provides localized access by allowing removal of specific longitudinal portions rather than the entire blanket. The bonded strips with discontinuous slits enable precise local detachment, ensuring that only the necessary area is exposed while other areas remain covered and thermally regulated.
3Adaptability or versatility
If longitudinal portions are made removable along bonded strips, then selective access is enabled, but the structural integrity and reliability of the blanket is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The blanket incorporates bonded strips with discontinuous slits that allow controlled segmentation into removable longitudinal portions. These bonded strips provide defined separation points that maintain structural integrity when portions are attached while enabling reliable detachment when needed, balancing versatility with structural reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The bonded strips with discontinuous slits are pre-formed during manufacturing to create predetermined separation points. This preliminary action ensures that the blanket can be reliably segmented along these pre-defined lines without compromising overall structural integrity, as the bonding and slit patterns are optimized during production.
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
Enables clinicians to access specific body areas without removing the entire blanket, reducing complexity and maintaining patient temperature by allowing selective exposure and re-exposure of body parts as needed during surgery.
Implementation Method 1
a bonded strip -- with a discontinuous slit, weakened portion or tearable line extending along the strip -- that allows the longitudinal portions to be separated from each other
Implementation Method 2
a plurality of longitudinal channels are provided along each of the splitable longitudinal portions. Each of the channels is formed by adjacent spaced apart seals that bondedly attach the two air impermeable sheets
Data Source
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AI summary
A full body blanket has a central bonded strip that extends from a distal end of an upper portion of the blanket to the foot end of the blanket to divide the main body of the blanket into two longitudinal portions. A discontinuous slit or tearable line is provided along the length of the strip to enable the longitudinal portions to be separable from each other by a user applying a force along the tearable strip. The strip may be torn anywhere along its entire length so that the longitudinal portion to be removed from the patient may be folded back anywhere along the length of the strip to selectively expose particular body parts of the patient. The blanket is inflated by heated air, and the heated air is circulated by channels that extend longitudinally along each of the longitudinal portions. Rows of apertures provided along the channels at the layer of the blanket that makes contact with the patient output the heated air to warm the patient.