Illumination – With wearing apparel or body support
Reexamination Certificate
2001-03-06
2003-04-29
O'Shea, Sandra (Department: 2875)
Illumination
With wearing apparel or body support
C362S231000, C362S230000, C362S276000, C362S295000, C362S084000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06554444
ABSTRACT:
The present invention relates to a multi-purpose gazing point illuminating device which can change the lighting direction corresponding to the gazing direction of the user. It further relates to a surgical operation illuminating system that uses the same device.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
For a light in an operation room of a hospital, a so-called astral lighting system has been used to illuminate the part of operation with high illuminance without casting shadows there.
An astral lighting system is constructed so that many lamps are embedded in a large dish-like base which is suspended from the ceiling of the operation room. Therefore, for its placement, a large room is needed and the ceiling of the operation room must be adequately high. Furthermore, because of its very heavy weight, not only the ceiling but also the whole operation room is required to be structurally strong. As a result, the construction cost of an operation room is high due to this lighting system.
Another problem of the astral lighting system is that it generates a large amount of heat. In a heart operation, however, the temperature of the patient's body must be kept low. In such case, a high-power cooling system must be provided to overcome the heat caused by the lighting system and lower the body temperature in a short time. This also has increased the construction cost of the operation room.
When an operation is performed, several people including operation doctors and assisting staff stand by the operation bed, as shown in FIG.
11
. In a culmination or an important time of an operation, they tend to unconsciously lean forward to gaze the part of operation, so that their heads intercept the light from the astral lighting system
30
to the part of operation, making a shadow on the part.
In a certain kind of operation, an operator needs to look at the part of operation from the side, not from the high as shown in FIG.
11
. For example, in an operation for a colon tumor, the operator needs to look at the anal from side. In this case, in addition to the astral lighting system on the ceiling, another side lighting system is necessary to directly illuminate the part. Since it is normally impossible to use a side lamp as large as the astral lighting system on the ceiling, the operator is sometimes required to take a clumsy or unnatural position for avoiding his own shadow cast on the part of operation.
It has already been proposed to fix a lamp to the operator's head. Or a device has been proposed in which an end of an optical fiber bundle is fixed to the operator's head and a beam of light from a remote light source is transmitted therethrough. Since, in these cases, the lamp or the light emitting end of the fiber bundle is fixed to the operator's head, he/she must change the position of his/her head when he/she wants to change the illuminating direction. When an operation takes a long time, the operator needs to change his/her head position frequently or needs to take and keep clumsy postures for a certain period of time, which causes an excessive fatigue in his/her neck or shoulder.
Besides the above-mentioned surgical operation, it is also convenient if, in the case of a home medical care or a nursing care, the lighting direction can be changed freely corresponding to the part to be cared. Especially in the home medical care case, an easy and portable device that can illuminate a necessary point is required because conventional lighting systems are hard to carry around.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is achieved in this respect placing its primary object to provide a gazing point illuminating device that can light in a desired direction easily and illuminate an object point without making a shadow. Another object is to provide a portable gazing point illuminating device for illuminating a desired point without requiring a clumsy posture of the user. Preferably it can be used in a surgical operation.
According to the present invention, a gazing point illuminating device is provided with: a light source; a direction changing mechanism for changing the lighting direction of the light source; a gazing direction detector for detecting the direction of the user's gazing line; and a controller for changing the lighting direction corresponding to the detected gazing direction.
In the present invention, the user's gazing direction is detected and the lighting direction of the light source is changed corresponding to the detected gazing direction, so that the gazing point of the user is always illuminated automatically. When the device is used in a surgical operation, for example, the operating doctor need not take a clumsy posture as was conventionally required, and the part of operation can be illuminated assuredly and safely. When the device is used in the case of a home medical care or a nursing care, the part to be cared can be illuminated according to the doctor's or care-taker's gazing direction.
In a style of the present invention, an EL (Electro-Luminescence) panel may be used as the light source. An EL panel is a lighting device using a thin-film electroluminescent element. There are two types in the EL panels: an inorganic EL type and an organic EL type. The inorganic EL type includes those using manganese added zinc sulfide (ZnS:Mn), terbium added zinc sulfide (ZnS:Tb), cerium added strontium sulfide (SrS:Ce), cerium added strontium thiogallate (SrGa2S4:Ce), etc. The organic EL type includes those using tetraphenyl-diamine derivatives (TPD), polyvinyl-carbazole (PVK), aluminum-quinolinol complex (Alq3), distyryl-biphenyl derivatives (DPVBi), etc. The EL panel used in the present invention may be shaped flat or concave against the lighting direction. When it is shaped concave so that the light from the whole EL panel is converged to an object point or object area, the illuminating efficiency is very high.
In another style of the present invention, the light source may be an LED (Light Emitting Diode) panel in which an LED or a plurality of LEDs are arranged on a base board. The number of LEDs on an LED panel depends on the strength of the LED used and the brightness needed by the illuminating device using the LED panel. When a plurality of LEDs are used, they may be arranged on the base board one-dimensionally (straight or curve) or two-dimensionally. The base board can be flat or concave against the lighting direction, as described above for the EL panel.
An LED has a high energy-converting efficiency. Compared to conventional incandescent lamps, its energy consumption is greatly reduced and the heat generation is thus minimized. When it is used in a surgical operation where the part of operation needs to be cooled, the operation can be performed without a powerful cooling system.
An LED has other great advantages of longlife and lightweight. The illuminating device of the present invention using an LED panel also has the same advantages over conventional illuminating devices. When the gazing point illuminating device of the present invention is used in a surgical operation, the cost can be greatly reduced compared to the conventional astral lighting system which claims a large construction cost and requires a costly cooling system.
When an LED panel is used in the present invention, white LED or LEDs may be used. In this way, the illuminating device of the present invention realizes an energy-saving, lightweight and longlife white light source which can replace conventional incandescent lamps or fluorescent lamps.
White LEDs can be fabricated either by the combination of LEDs emitting at blue, green and red spectral range, or by the combination of blue LEDs and phosphors. Latter type of white LEDs, for example, consist of InGaN-based LED and YAG-phosphor, whose spectra are composed of two emission bands, where the blue band peaking at 460 nm is the emission from InGaN quantum-well-active layers, and the broad yellow band at 560 nm is the one from YAG phosphor.
When an LED panel is used in the present invention, the LED panel may be composed o
Fujita Shigeo
Kawakami Yoichi
Shimada Jun'ichi
DelGizzi Ronald E.
Kansai Technology Licensing Organization Co., Ltd.
O'Shea Sandra
Oliff & Berridg,e PLC
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