Automatic fever abatement system

Details Automatic fever abatement system Automatic fever abatement system

1999-09-15

2002-09-10

Hayes, Michael J. (Department: 3763)

Surgery

Means for introducing or removing material from body for...

Treating material introduced into or removed from body...

C604S503000, C604S113000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06447474

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system that abates fever in hospital patients by administering medication, coolant, or other treatment substance.
2. Description of the Related Art
In warm blooded creatures, temperature regulation is one of the most important functions of the body. The human body seeks to maintain a core temperature of 37 degrees Celsius, and functions optimally when this temperature is achieved. Excessive temperatures cause various health problems, one of the most serious being brain damage. For patients with brain injury, fever can exacerbate neuronal outcomes.
To treat fever, a number of different techniques are known. For example, patients often receive medication such as acetaminophen (Tylenol) or acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin). In one extreme technique, physicians cool the patient's entire body by packing it in ice. In another technique, the patient is covered with a cooling blanket, such as an inflatable cushion that is filled with a coolant such as air or water. There are also other traditional approaches such a gastric lavage with ice water, infusing cold solution, etc.
One newly developed approach treats fever by circulating a coolant through a catheter placed inside a patient's body. The catheter may be inserted into veins, arteries, cavities, or other internal regions of the body. The present assignee has pioneered a number of different cooling catheters and techniques in this area. Several different examples are shown in U.S. application Ser. No. 09/133,813, which was filed on Aug. 13, 1998, U.S. Pat. No. 6,338,727 and is hereby incorporated into the present application by reference.
Regardless of which technique is ultimately used to treat a patient's fever, each of these techniques is manually activated by medical staff when they initially detect fever. Accordingly, some attention is required of medical staff in order to initially detect the onset of fever. This approach is therefore subject to some delay from the time medical staff recognize the start of fever until treatment is initiated. Importantly, the delay in applying treatment is a missed opportunity to prevent the fever in the first place. Moreover, during this delay, the fever may proceed into more serious stages. Thus, this delay can represent some health risk to the patient. As the science of medicine is interested in minimizing or reducing health risks wherever possible, the present Assignee realizes that known fever abatement approaches may not be completely satisfactory.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Broadly, the present invention concerns a machine-driven system to treat or even prevent fever in hospital patients by administering medication, coolant, or other treatment substance. One exemplary system includes a treatment substance administration path (“path”), a flow device, a source, one or more fever characteristic sensors, and a controller. The path may be an open-ended structure, such as a tube, or a closed-ended structure such as a catheter with a sealed, internal conduit. The treatment substance administration path is coupled to regions of the patient's body that will contain or absorb the treatment substance, as appropriate to the particular substance being used. The path is coupled to the flow device, which is itself attached to the source. The flow device comprises a pump, valve, or other suitable mechanism to regulate flow of the treatment substance from the source through the path. The source contains a treatment substance such as medication (in the case of an open-ended path) or a coolant (in the case of a closed-ended path). One or more fever characteristic sensors are attached to various sites on the patient. In the case of a closed-ended path, the system may also include a return vessel to receive treatment substance returning from the patient's body.
The fever characteristic sensors repeatedly measure temperature, metabolic rate, and/or other bodily properties that are affected by fever, and provide representative machine-readable outputs. Concurrently, the controller repeatedly computes a supply strategy to regulate the patient's temperature according to pre-programmed specifications. Then, according to the computed strategy, the controller directs the flow device to deliver treatment substance to the path, and ultimately to the patient's body. In addition to administering coolant, medication, or other treatment substance to treat fever, the controller may activate other antipyretic means by (1) starting, adjusting, or redirecting a fan, (2) adjusting an air conditioning thermostat, (3) issuing visual or audible warning signals to hospital staff, etc.
In one embodiment, the invention may be implemented to provide a method to automatically treat or prevent fever in hospital patients by administering medication, coolant, or other antipyretic treatment substance. In another embodiment, the invention may be implemented to provide an apparatus, such as fever abatement system, for automatically treating or preventing fever in hospital patients. In still another embodiment, the invention may be implemented to provide a signal-bearing medium tangibly embodying a program of machine-readable instructions executable by a digital data processing apparatus to perform operations to manage components of an automatic fever abatement system. Another embodiment concerns logic circuitry having multiple interconnected electrically conductive elements configured to perform operations to manage components of an automatic fever abatement system.
The invention affords its users with a number of distinct advantages. In addition to quickly recognizing the presence or future onset of fever, the invention automatically initiates a procedure to cool the patient. Unlike the prior art, there is no delay before medical staff recognize the start of fever. In fact, actions may be taken before the body even exhibits any temperature rise. With the invention, rapid delivery of a therapeutic drug can begin within minutes from fever recognition. As another benefit, the invention utilizes machine control to minimize operator supervision, and thereby reduces operating costs and frees medical staff for other duties. Accordingly, the prompt recognition and treatment of fever no longer requires twenty-four hour, minute-by-minute attention from hospital staff and doctors. As still another advantage, fever detection characteristics may be customized for each patient to ensure early and accurate fever detection. The invention also provides a number of other advantages and benefits, which should be apparent from the following description of the invention.


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