Surgery – Truss – Pad
Patent
1994-05-24
1997-09-30
Casler, Brian L.
Surgery
Truss
Pad
600134, 128 897, 128908, A61B 505
Patent
active
056717385
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for electric safety of medical electric or electronic equipment and specifically for the safe electric protection of equipment for electronic dental diagnostic radiology by defining one environment for the medical electric equipment and another environment for other simultaneously connected auxiliary equipment and using an intermediate electrically approved insulating unit forming a link between the two environments.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In recent days the development of the Charge Coupled Device (CCD) normally utilized for example in video camera technique also has made it possible to apply such devices for radiology. In dental X-ray examination this is a very advantageous technique as the dental application is very easy adopted to this new branch of art. In the dental intraoral application there is only need for fairly small X-ray detector surfaces and consequently CCD sensors of reasonable available size may replace the ordinary piece of film put behind a tooth or the teeth of a patient subject to X-ray examination. Such a CCD sensor adapted for X-ray radiation is for example marketed under the name SENS-A-RAY.RTM. and manufactured by Regam Medical Systems, Sundsvall, Sweden.
One very important result of this is that it is then possible to immediately obtain an image on a screen without the otherwise time consuming necessary chemical processing of the exposed X-ray film by developing it in a darkroom or within a special light sealed device.
Making use of the most recent state of the electronic art it is very advantageous to utilize some kind of computer equipment which is capable of receiving the electrical signals obtained from the CCD sensor when it is subjected to radiation by X-rays. Such a computerized equipment will have the potential to process the image data received from the CCD sensor to produce an image on a display as well as processing and storing images by means of standard mass storage devices. Such technique is for example disclosed in U.S. Pat. No 4,905,265 by Cox et al. 1990
In other words this technique will be extremely well suited for the using of a standard Personal Computer (PC) commonly found on the market, and manufactured by many different companies. Such a device will be able to perform all the wanted functions in this respect. However there is an obvious drawback as most of these devices will in reality not be permitted for use within an area of defined medical electric environment. In other words a Personal Computer used in such an environment must primarily fulfil the demands of the International Standard IEC 601-1 (second edition) which concerns medical electric equipment and the particular requirements for safety even if the used CCD sensor package itself is primarily nonconducting.
Thus this is the main obstacle to be able to use such inexpensive computer equipment in this application due to the demand of electric approval for the using of such electric or electronic devices within a medical electric environment. Standard PC:s does not possess such an approval as this implies additional costs in testing and production of the devices, which for standard computer use should result in too expensive equipment which will not be competitive in the general market. A series of such approved equipment for use within areas of medical electric environment will be small in quantity compared to standard equipment series and thus will be fairly expensive to the customer.
Consequently there is a high demand for a method and an apparatus to facilitate the use of common market standard personal computers for the displaying, processing and storing of images produced by CCD-sensors utilized for dental intraoral X-ray examinations. Such a system should still preferably rely on a base of wired connections to simplify the overall need of any additional equipment as well as simultaneously keep any induced interference to other adjacent equipments, such as radio receivers and the like, at a minimum.
DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENT
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Casler Brian L.
Regam Medical Systems International AB
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