Patent Application
20240130912
Not applicable.
Not applicable.
This invention is directed to therapeutic hyperbaric chambers which are used in medical treatment.
Hyperbaric therapy involves breathing air or oxygen enriched air in a pressurized chamber. Hyperbaric therapy is a well-known and well-established treatment for decompression sickness, which can occur during scuba diving. A primary medical use for hyperbaric chambers is treating infections and difficult wounds that may not heal due to diabetes or other factors.
In a hyperbaric chamber, the air pressure is increased up to three times higher than normal air pressure for treatment. This allows the blood to absorb more oxygen than would be possible breathing air/enriched air at a normal air pressure. The extra oxygen in the blood is carried throughout a body, aiding in eliminating bacteria and stimulating improved cell growth factors and improved stem cells, which promote healing.
Currently, a common art practice is a completely manual system for pressure control. An air compressor connected to the chamber is turned on, the pressure in the tank rises, and the compressor is turned off once the chamber pressure reaches the pressure treatment amount. However, this method provides no airflow through the chamber during treatment. Consequently, CO2 will build up inside the tank, and a technician has to sample the tank air to ensure that CO2 and O2 are within acceptable limits. If the CO2 or O2 levels are out of limit, the inlet and outlet valves are opened, and the air is purged from the tank (i.e. a tank dump.) A more preferred practice is to have a continuous supply of airflow that constantly purges the tank of CO2 and ensures the correct O2 level. Currently, an art method for a constant flow utilizes separate vent valves for each desired chamber pressure. This requires the use of 6 to 8 vent valves to cover typical treatment pressures ordered by a doctor. Each vent valve has a shutoff valve which is manually opened. The air compressor is left on during the entire treatment.
Unfortunately, the pressure management can be complicated for technicians to operate. Errors arise if the wrong valve is selected, or if no valve is opened. The number of valves is expensive, and the precise pressure is difficult to monitor when managing multiple hyperbaric chambers.
Hyperbaric treatments that are being developed will require a more automated system. Emerging experimental evidence from small samples supports the concept of a variable pressure treatment due to the way the brain reacts to a changing oxygen amount. An improved endorphin environment is believed to be triggered by the brain when the oxygen level drops, even if the lower amount is well above what the body requires. It would help advance experiments to large trials if the chamber pressure control supports a wide variety of varying pressure curves.
It is important to a patient that the speed of a pressure change is gradual, not instant. It is uncomfortable, even painful, if a rapid pressure change causes pressure to build up behind the ears. To avoid patient complications and complaints, a common art practice is to design the equipment to a ramp up/down pressure of 1 psi per minute. However, patients with ear or eustachian tube infections require a different pressure ramp speed, and the current equipment design make this difficult to achieve. Current manual methods are imprecise and make a controlled ramping rate difficult and time demanding.
What is needed in the art is an improved method to address these issues with an improved control of the chamber pressure:
The embodied invention is a pressure control system on a hyperbaric chamber where the pressure regulation is automatic and continuous. The chamber is continuously controlled by an air venting control valve with electronic control to provide tight control. The control is able to be programmed to provide a therapeutic, varying pressure for treatment. It eliminates
To facilitate the desired improvements,
A timer monitors the timed therapeutic session 205 which can be initially set by preset time buttons 206a,b or adjusted to a particular time by the timer adjustment triangles 207. When the both the pressure setpoint and time timer values have been entered, the technician then presses the start button 208 for the treatment to begin.
Initially, the vent control valve is closed and the pressure rises in the chamber. When the pressure setpoint is reached, the venting control valve 108 opens to control pressure. It will continue to open to maintain the pressure setpoint, and the air compressor supply will continue to add air to the chamber based on the air compressor pressure/flow curve. Typically the airflow through the chamber is 3 CFM.
For a therapy session, it is possible to turn off the compressor to save energy, and then the venting valve will close, near the correct pressure setpoint. However, it is preferable to have a continuous flow of air through the chamber to prevent CO2 buildup. During a therapy session, it is a common practice to use a CO2 monitor to ensure a safe chamber air. Air compressors are typically controlled in an on/off manner without using a more expensive control system.
The control is capable of being set up based on the elevation above sea level when downloading the operational program into the micro controller in the control panel. Alternately, the electronic pressure gauge can be calibrated at sea level, and the actual pressure is displayed as absolute pressure. For example, the atmospheric pressure at sea level is 14.7 psia, and at 5000 ft in Denver, Colorado it is 12.2 psia.
A pressure control system 509 comprises the pressure transducer 506 and the PID control circuit 507 that ultimately instruct the valve controller 508 to obtain and maintain the desired pressure, whether constant or variable.
In the current conceived embodiment of the invention, the rate at which the pressure rises and falls is controlled by a common setpoint in psi/minutes. This is due to body physiology about what a patient can comfortably withstand. Typically, a single rate is sufficient for all rising and falling of pressure, both initially and during the varying upper/lower pressures. However, such a rate is easily adjustable for each place of rising/falling and the embodied invention is capable to readily add a variety of pressure rate setpoints to the control panel.
While various embodiments of the present invention have been described, the invention may be modified and adapted to various operational methods to those skilled in the art. Therefore, this invention is not limited to the description and figure shown herein, and includes all such embodiments, changes, and modifications that are encompassed by the scope of the claims.
