Throat guard apparatus

A throat guard apparatus intended for insertion into the mouth of a patient so as to assist in preventing small objects from passing into the patient's throat, said apparatus comprising:

• a throat guard of two dimensional flexible sheet material having a forward oversized portion of a size to overlie and project beyond the tongue and teeth of the patient's lower jaw arch and a rear leaf portion foldable upwardly and forwardly for obstructing the passage from the mouth to the throat of a patient, said rear portion being integrally connected to said forward portion and being shaped to fold upwardly so as to meet a patient's upper hard palate, and
• a retaining device comprising:
• a. first means for releasably retaining the oversized portion of said sheet material in a generally horizontal plane covering the patient's lower arch and the rear throat area wherein a rear-most portion of said first means is generally curved upwardly to the rear towards an anchoring position and does not retain said throat guard material,
• b. second means for resiliently engaging an upper portion of the mouth while being resiliently connected at a rear-most portion with the rear-most portion of said first means so as to offer spring bias and assist in maintaining said first means in place in the mouth cavity but not to retain said sheet material,
• c. anchoring means resiliently connecting the rear-most portions of said first and second means and adapted to reside at said anchoring position between the upper gums and cheek in rear of the mouth,
• d. wherein said first means comprises two generally U-shaped resilient elements adapted to reside between lower gums and inner lower cheek having their respective opposite ends resiliently biased towards each other and secured in said anchoring means, and wherein said second means comprises a generally U-shaped resilient element adapted to reside between upper gums and inner lower cheek having opposite ends each also retained in said anchoring means and extending away from said two elements of said first means to collectively define a bi-valve retaining frame.