Infusion pump with occlusion sensitive shutoff
AssigneeGraseby Medical Limited
InventorMichael L. Derlien
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An infusion pump, suitable for medical applications, has a movable carriage which is arranged gradually to depress the plunger of a syringe. The carriage moves along a fixed rod at a rate determined by the rotation of a lead screw. Any excess pressure in the infusion line produces a back-pressure on the plunger which causes an axial force to be exerted on the carriage and thus on the lead screw. When this force exceeds a predetermined value, indicative of an occlusion of he infusion line, the lead screw will move axially so compressing a spring and causing a clutch to become decoupled, causing infusion to cease and an alarm to sound.
Claims21
An infusion pump for a syringe having a plunger comprising:
- means for holding the syringe;
- a plunger means for coupling to the plunger to depress the plunger of the syringe;
- drive means for effecting controlled movement of said plunger depression means;
- a motion indicating member;
- a clutch means operably coupled to said motion indicating member and selectively coupled to said drive means for selective movement with said drive means such that said clutch means moves said motion indicating member at a rate proportional to the rate of movement of said drive means when said clutch means is engaged with said drive means and said clutch is disengaged from said drive means when the back-force on said plunger depression means exceeds a predetermined back-force value whereby motion of said motion indicating member ceases;
- and
- means coupled to said motion indicating member for detecting motion of said motion indicating member and responsive to detecting cessation of motion of said motion indicating member for outputing an output signal which disables said drive means.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.