Patent Application
20200305949
In the field of MIS (minimally invasive surgery) there is a limited ability to maneuver electrosurgical or other instruments in the patient or surgical field. More specifically, during surgery, the surgeon has to maneuver an instrument such as an electrosurgical instrument in a very narrow and sometimes in an obscured optical field. For example, when conducting spinal surgery, the surgeon passes an electrode attached to the electrosurgical instrument through a small passage made in the skin of the patient, muscle and then through various components of the spine including vertebrae to reach the desired region for treatment.
Further, the surgeon must rotate and maneuver the electrosurgical electrode to accurately reach the desired component or target region with the electrosurgical instrument. As such, this placement and maneuvering requires extreme skill and care on behalf of the surgeon to ensure that the surgical instrument is placed in the right location and moved in the right directions.
An electrosurgical handpiece is provided that includes a squeezable handle. The squeezable handle has a back grip and a finger grip that can be squeezed to actuate electrosurgical handpiece. The backgrip and the finger grip is connected to the back grip by a lower malleable region that has an elasticity greater than the remainder of the squeezable handle.
The present application incorporates U.S. Pat. No. 7,905,882 entitled Activator for Electrosurgical Handpiece filed May 3, 2007 by reference in its entirety.
Referring now to
Lower malleable region 88 is made of an elastic material such that the material flexes and bends in response to squeezing of back grip 76 and finger grips 78, 80 and 82 during actuation of the electrosurgical instrument. In one aspect, the elasticity transitions from more rigid to less rigid at transitions 84 and 86.
In
Referring now to
Referring now to
Upon release, the spring described previously moves the upper rigid member 72 away from upper rigid member 74. In an alternative embodiment, no return spring is provided in the electrosurgical handpiece 10. Instead, lower malleable region 88 has a spring coefficient that sufficiently pushes squeezable handle 12 apart for moving front body part 14 away from rear body part 16. In another embodiment, lower malleable region 88 combines with the spring of electrosurgical handpiece 10 to form a combined spring coefficient to move front body part 14 away from rear body part 16.
Referring now to
While the invention has been described in connection with preferred embodiments, it will be understood that modifications thereof within the principles outlined above will be evident to those skilled in the art and thus the invention is not limited to the preferred embodiments but is intended to encompass such modifications.
In this specification, various preferred embodiments may have been described with reference to the accompanying drawings. It will, however, be evident that various modifications and changes may be made thereto, and additional embodiments may be implemented, without departing from the broader scope of the invention as set forth in the claims that follow. The present invention is thus not to be interpreted as being limited to particular embodiments and the specification and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than restrictive sense.
It will be appreciated that the system and methods described herein have broad applications. The foregoing embodiments were chosen and described in order to illustrate principles of the methods and apparatuses as well as some practical applications. The preceding description enables others skilled in the art to utilize methods and apparatuses in various embodiments and with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated. In accordance with the provisions of the patent statutes, the principles and modes of operation of this invention have been explained and illustrated in exemplary embodiments.
It is intended that the scope of the present methods and apparatuses be defined by the following claims. However, it must be understood that this invention may be practiced otherwise than is specifically explained and illustrated without departing from its spirit or scope. It should be understood by those skilled in the art that various alternatives to the embodiments described herein may be employed in practicing the claims without departing from the spirit and scope as defined in the following claims. The scope of the invention should be determined, not with reference to the above description, but should instead be determined with reference to the appended claims, along with the full scope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled. It is anticipated and intended that future developments will occur in the arts discussed herein, and that the disclosed systems and methods will be incorporated into such future examples. Furthermore, all terms used in the claims are intended to be given their broadest reasonable constructions and their ordinary meanings as understood by those skilled in the art unless an explicit indication to the contrary is made herein. In particular, use of the singular articles such as “a,” “the,” “said,” etc. should be read to recite one or more of the indicated elements unless a claim recites an explicit limitation to the contrary. It is intended that the following claims define the scope of the invention and that the method and apparatus within the scope of these claims and their equivalents be covered thereby. In sum, it should be understood that the invention is capable of modification and variation and is limited only by the following claims.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62824204 | Mar 2019 | US |
