Redundant controls for negative pressure wound therapy systems
AssigneeSmith & Nephew, Inc.
InventorFelix Clarence Quintanar
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Embodiments of negative pressure wound therapy systems and methods are disclosed. In one embodiment, a system includes a wound dressing, negative pressure source, switch, and control circuitry. The switch can include an actuator that toggles states of first and second pairs of contacts in response to a user input. The control circuitry can supply negative pressure with the negative pressure source when the state of the first pair of contacts is a first state and the state of the second pair of contacts is a second state, and the control circuitry can disable supply of negative pressure with the negative pressure source when the state of the first pair of contacts is not the first state or the state of the second pair of contacts is not the second state.
Claims20
An apparatus for applying negative pressure to a wound, the apparatus comprising:
- a negative pressure source configured to provide negative pressure to a wound dressing via a fluid flow path;
- a switch comprising an actuator configured to toggle a state of a first pair of electrical contacts and a state of a second pair of electrical contacts in response to a user input, the switch being configured to receive the user input as a depression of the switch;
- and
- control circuitry configured to:
- supply negative pressure with the negative pressure source in response to the first pair of electrical contacts being in an electrically connected state and the second pair of electrical contacts being in the electrically connected state,
- disable supply of negative pressure with the negative pressure source in response to the first pair of electrical contacts being in an electrically disconnected state and the second pair of electrical contacts being in the electrically disconnected state, and
- disable supply of negative pressure with the negative pressure source in response to the first pair of electrical contacts being in the electrically connected state and the second pair of electrical contacts being in the electrically disconnected state.
An apparatus for applying negative pressure to a wound, the apparatus comprising:
- a negative pressure source configured to provide negative pressure to a wound dressing via a fluid flow path;
- a switch comprising an actuator configured to toggle a state of a first pair of electrical contacts and a state of a second pair of electrical contacts in response to a user input, the switch being configured to receive the user input as a depression of the switch;
- and
- control circuitry configured to:
- supply negative pressure with the negative pressure source in response to the first pair of electrical contacts being in an electrically connected state and the second pair of electrical contacts being in the electrically connected state,
- disable supply of negative pressure with the negative pressure source in response to the first pair of electrical contacts being in an electrically disconnected state or the second pair of electrical contacts being in the electrically disconnected state, and
- detect a switch fault in response to the state of the first pair of electrical contacts not toggling within a threshold period of time subsequent to toggling of the state of the second pair of electrical contacts.
A method for controlling application of negative pressure to a wound, the method comprising:
- using an actuator of a switch, toggling a first pair of electrical contacts from an electrically disconnected state to an electrically connected state and a second pair of electrical contacts from the electrically disconnected state to the electrically connected state in response to receipt of a first user input to the switch as a depression of the switch;
- supplying negative pressure with a negative pressure source to a wound dressing via a fluid flow path when the first pair of electrical contacts is in the electrically connected state and the second pair of electrical contacts is in the electrically connected state;
- and
- changing the first pair of electrical contacts from the electrically connected state to the electrically disconnected state but not changing the second pair of electrical contacts from the electrically connected state to the electrically disconnected state;
- and
- disabling supply of negative pressure with the negative pressure source when the first pair of electrical contacts is in the electrically disconnected state and the second pair of electrical contacts is in the electrically connected state.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.