Surgery: splint – brace – or bandage – Orthopedic bandage – With light – thermal – or electrical application
Reexamination Certificate
1999-11-04
2001-06-19
Nasser, Robert L. (Department: 3736)
Surgery: splint, brace, or bandage
Orthopedic bandage
With light, thermal, or electrical application
C602S014000, C602S042000, C607S096000, C607S114000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06248084
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The invention relates to a wound treatment device for covering and in some applications heating skin lesions; surgical wounds and the like. The wound treatment device includes a wound cover which can support a detachable planar wound heater. The wound covering provides a non-contact wound treatment volume over the wound area. The planar heater supplies or reflects heat from the wound area. The invention also relates to and addresses methods for making the wound covering and to methods for treating a wound.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
One traditional method of treating a wound involves the placement of a sterile gauze over the wound area and holding the gauze in place with adhesive tape. This type of wound dressing has numerous shortcomings. The wound is not fully isolated from the environment and can exchange bacteria with the environment. The gauze can adhere to the wound area interfering with the healing process which is undesirable as well. This traditional form of bandage does not control the thermal environment of the wound and this is undesirable as well.
Although wound heaters and non-contact wound coverings are known they are not generally accepted for several reasons. Wound coverings which include a rigid enclosure forming a cavity that covers the wound are usually adhesively attached to the skin of the patient with a relatively inelastic material. This results in the inability of the wound covering to accommodate patient motion. Usually patient motion will cause the rigid wound covering to peel-off of the patient's skin. The traditional solution to this problem has been to use a more aggressive adhesive tape or the like to more firmly attach the wound covering to the skin. This solution to the problem results in an uncomfortable bandage.
The traditional wound covering does not permit close control over the temperature of the wound area. Prior art heated bandages which rely on a non-contact enclosure may use point source type heaters which result in variations in radiant heat flux depending on the location of the heater within the enclosure. Therefore there is a need for a non-contact bandage which can be used to control the environment of the wound and which may be reliably and comfortably attached to the skin.
SUMMARY
The wound treatment device
10
of the present invention has a planar upper surface displaced above the patient's skin surface, and an attachment surface generally in the plane of the patient's skin. Together these two surfaces define an enclosed non-contact volume over the wound treatment site.
The wound treatment device
10
may be divided into three separate parts for the purpose of description. These parts are an attachment portion
12
, a wound treatment portion
14
, and a transition portion
16
. Each portion is designed to serve a separate function.
The attachment portion
12
is used to connect the wound treatment device
10
to the skin of a patient. The attachment portion
12
will usually be formed as an annular attachment rim. An adhesive will typically be placed on the attachment rim to couple the wound treatment device
10
to the patient. The attachment portion
12
lies near the patients skin and defines a so called first plane.
The wound treatment portion
14
of the wound treatment device
10
includes a standoff which rises above the patient's skin surface. The standoff defines the vertical extent or dimension of the wound treatment device
10
and thus defines the location of the second plane. The wound treatment portion
14
and standoff also define both a wound treatment volume
24
and a wound treatment area
26
. The wound treatment volume
24
is located over the surface of the wound. The atmosphere in this wound treatment volume
24
can be controlled by the wound treatment device
10
. The wound treatment area
26
is defined on the patient surface
18
under the wound treatment portion
14
, and will typically be centered over the lesion or wound.
The transition portion
16
connects the attachment portion
12
to the wound treatment portion
14
. This transition portion
16
improves the comfort and utility of the wound treatment device when the patient moves and stretches the wound treatment device
10
. This stretching causes the total projected area of the wound treatment device
10
to increase and the shape of the wound treatment device
10
to change. In practice, the bulk of the patient motion is accommodated by the compliance of the transition portion
16
. As a consequence, the transition portion projected area
17
increases. The standoff of wound treatment portion
14
rests gently on the patient's skin and it may twist to accommodate patient motion. However since the standoff can slide along the patient's skin there is no substantial change in the projected wound treatment area
28
due to patient motion. During patient motion the attachment portion
12
remains affixed to the surface of the patient and is easily deformed by body motion because of its relatively small area. Consequently the attachment portion projected area
40
may undergo a slight increase in area as the attachment portion
12
moves with the underlying skin. Throughout this motion the second planar surface is supported above the patients skin surface and can be used to support a detachable heater
32
which can heat the wound surface. A switch may also be provided to reduce power supplied to the wound treatment device
10
if the device is crushed in to contact with the wound.
REFERENCES:
patent: 222690 (1879-12-01), Goldschmidt
patent: 697637 (1902-04-01), Lee
patent: 720812 (1903-02-01), Johnson
patent: 1384467 (1921-07-01), Homan
patent: 1399095 (1921-12-01), Webb, Sr.
patent: 1777982 (1930-10-01), Popp
patent: 1920808 (1933-08-01), Sander
patent: 1979082 (1934-10-01), Schwedenberg et al.
patent: 2221758 (1940-11-01), Elmquist
patent: 2443481 (1948-06-01), Sene
patent: 2573791 (1951-11-01), Howells
patent: 2577945 (1951-12-01), Atherton
patent: 2599523 (1952-06-01), Dorr
patent: 2601189 (1952-06-01), Wales, Jr.
patent: 2632443 (1953-03-01), Lesher
patent: 2706988 (1955-04-01), Weber
patent: 2769892 (1956-11-01), Collins
patent: 3026974 (1962-03-01), Stevens
patent: 3528416 (1970-09-01), Chamberlain
patent: 3596657 (1971-08-01), Eidus
patent: 3610238 (1971-10-01), Rich, Jr.
patent: 3610251 (1971-10-01), Sanderson
patent: 3687143 (1972-08-01), Schneeberger et al.
patent: 3691646 (1972-09-01), Ruffolo
patent: 3782377 (1974-01-01), Rychlik
patent: 3814095 (1974-06-01), Lubens
patent: 3867939 (1975-02-01), Moore
patent: 3881477 (1975-05-01), Von Otto
patent: 4080971 (1978-03-01), Leeper
patent: 4134399 (1979-01-01), Halderson
patent: 4172495 (1979-10-01), Zebuhr et al.
patent: 4279255 (1981-07-01), Hoffman
patent: 4341209 (1982-07-01), Schaar
patent: 4382441 (1983-05-01), Svedman
patent: 4399816 (1983-08-01), Spangler
patent: 4484574 (1984-11-01), DeRusha et al.
patent: 4517972 (1985-05-01), Finch, Jr.
patent: 4540412 (1985-09-01), Van Overloop
patent: 4572188 (1986-02-01), Augustine et al.
patent: 4628930 (1986-12-01), Williams
patent: 4633863 (1987-01-01), Filips et al.
patent: 4641641 (1987-02-01), Strock
patent: 4641643 (1987-02-01), Greer
patent: 4667666 (1987-05-01), Fryslie
patent: 4890608 (1990-01-01), Steer
patent: 4962761 (1990-10-01), Golden
patent: 4969881 (1990-11-01), Viesturs
patent: 5003971 (1991-04-01), Buckley
patent: 5025777 (1991-06-01), Hardwick
patent: 5060662 (1991-10-01), Farnswoth, III
patent: 5086763 (1992-02-01), Hathman
patent: 5107832 (1992-04-01), Guibert et al.
patent: 5135518 (1992-08-01), Verg
patent: 5144113 (1992-09-01), Hall et al.
patent: 5144958 (1992-09-01), Krueger et al.
patent: 5170781 (1992-12-01), Loomis
patent: 5190031 (1993-03-01), Guibert et al.
patent: 5230350 (1993-07-01), Fentress
patent: 5431622 (1995-07-01), Pxrozyk et al.
patent: 5531670 (1996-07-01), Westby
patent: 5609619 (1997-03-01), Pompei
patent: 5662624 (1997-09-01), Sundström et al.
patent: 5817145 (1998-10-01), Augustine et al.
patent: 269938 (1950-07-01), None
patent: 0269938 (1
Arnold Randall C.
Augustine Scott D.
Hamlin Gregory P.
Stapf Donald E.
Augustine Medical, Inc.
Gray Cary
Nasser Robert L.
LandOfFree
Wound treatment device does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Wound treatment device, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Wound treatment device will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2435074