Surgical Microscope Drape Segmentation for Sterile Coverage

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing surgical microscopes with complex shapes pose difficulties in attaching drapes, leading to complications and inefficiencies in maintaining a sterile state during surgical procedures.

Innovation Solution

A drape with a main body portion that is folded in an unused state and expanded in an in-use state, featuring a handle portion such as a drawer member to facilitate easy attachment and expansion, ensuring the drape covers the surgical microscope while maintaining sterility.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If a drape is designed to cover a surgical microscope with multiple eyepieces, then the sterile state is maintained, but the attachment becomes difficult due to the complicated shape

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvesterile stateVSAvoidattachment ease

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The drape is divided into a main body portion and a handle portion. The handle portion can be detached after the main body portion is attached to the surgical microscope, simplifying the attachment process while maintaining sterile coverage.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The handle portion is extracted as a separate component that assists during attachment but is removed afterward. This allows the main body portion to be simply shaped for easy attachment while the handle provides temporary manipulation aid.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

2Reliability

If a drape is designed to fully cover the surgical microscope, then sterility is maintained, but the surgical microscope operability is reduced

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvesterile stateVSAvoidmicroscope operability

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The drape is segmented into a main body portion that covers the surgical microscope and a handle portion that provides operational access. The handle portion can be detached to maintain full coverage while allowing operator interaction with the microscope controls.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The handle portion acts as an intermediary that allows the operator to manipulate the surgical microscope through the drape barrier, maintaining sterility while enabling operation. After use, it is detached to restore full microscope accessibility.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Data Source

PatentUS10610321B2Drape, surgical microscope, and surgical microscope system

Publication Date: 2020.04.07 SONY OLYMPUS MEDICAL SOLUTIONS

AI summary

A drape maintains a sterile state of a surgical microscope by covering the surgical microscope that enlarges and observes a minute portion of an observation object, and includes: a main body portion that is folded in an unused state and expanded in an in-use state to cover the surgical microscope; and a handle portion that promotes a state change of the drape from the unused state to the in-use state.