CN114366382A

CN114366382A - Self-locking urethral valve

Info

Publication number: CN114366382A
Application number: CN202210044967.4A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 邵爱祥; 李笑
Original assignee: Guangdong University of Technology
Current assignee: Guangdong University of Technology
Priority date: 2022-01-14
Filing date: 2022-01-14
Publication date: 2022-04-19

Abstract

The invention belongs to the field of medical instruments, and particularly relates to a self-locking urethral valve which comprises a valve body, a valve core, a driving assembly and a deformable bladder support, wherein the bladder support is used for supporting a bladder and is provided with a first cavity; the valve core is driven by the driving assembly to move towards a direction far away from the channel. The invention can self-adaptively adjust the locking force on the urethra according to the amount of urine in the bladder, thereby avoiding tissue damage caused by over-compression on the urethra or urine leakage caused by insufficient compression on the urethra.

Description

Self-locking urethral valve

Technical Field

The invention belongs to the field of medical instruments, and particularly relates to a self-locking urethral valve.

Background

Urinary incontinence is often found in women and the elderly, and can cause complications such as sacrococcygeal dermatitis and pressure ulcers, which seriously affect the quality of life and physical and mental health of patients. Urinary incontinence is caused by damage to the urethral sphincter or by neurological dysfunction, with sphincter functional defects or trauma again being the primary cause.

Aiming at urinary incontinence caused by functional defects of sphincters or trauma, the clinical practice usually adopts the measures of medicine or Chinese traditional medicine conservation treatment, operation treatment, nursing tools, skin nursing, psychological nursing and the like; however, the conservative treatment is only suitable for mild urinary incontinence, the surgical treatment is easily limited by the age, sex and the like of patients, complications such as dysuria, bladder perforation, vascular injury and the like are easily caused, and other nursing measures can only relieve the consequences caused by the urinary incontinence and treat the symptoms but not the root causes.

Therefore, in clinical practice, a urethral valve device capable of autonomously controlling the opening and closing of the urethra is used to replace the function of the sphincter to control the opening and closing between the bladder and the urethra, thereby fundamentally inhibiting the occurrence of urinary incontinence. However, most of the existing urethral valve devices only lock the urethra by means of external force such as magnetic force, so that the external force for locking the urethra is generally a fixed value, when the urine in the bladder increases, the pressure of the urine on the urethral valve increases, the locking force cannot offset the increased pressure caused by the increase of the urine in the bladder, and the urine leakage is easy to occur, so that the locking effect of the technical scheme is poor; if a large locking force is used from the beginning, the urethra is easy to be compressed and closed excessively, and the influence on the urethra tissues is large.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention aims to overcome at least one defect in the prior art and provides a self-locking urethral valve which can increase the locking force along with the increase of urine in a bladder and has better locking effect.

In order to solve the technical problems, the invention adopts the technical scheme that:

the self-locking urethral valve comprises a valve body, a valve core, a driving assembly and a deformable bladder support for supporting a bladder, wherein the bladder support is provided with a first cavity, the valve body is provided with a second cavity, the second cavity is provided with a deformable valve membrane, and the valve core is arranged in the valve body and forms a channel for clamping a urethra with the valve membrane; the valve core is driven by the driving assembly to move towards a direction far away from the channel.

Through first cavity and second cavity intercommunication in this scheme, and be full of incompressible liquid working medium wherein, when urine increases in the bladder, bladder support takes place to deform and causes the volume of first cavity to reduce, make liquid working medium remove to the second cavity, and then the extrusion valve membrane makes the extrusion force to the urethra bigger, further lock the urethra, can open the urethra in order to urinate when driving the valve core motion through drive assembly, the power of locking the urethra can change along with how much of urine in the bladder by oneself like this, it can simulate the feedback mechanism of human sphincter more truly, do not excessively extrude urethra tissue when accomplishing oliguria, lock the urethra during polyuria, thereby realize better locking effect.

As a further improved structure form, the bladder support comprises a base provided with a notch and a deformable bladder support membrane which is used for being abutted against the bladder, and the bladder support membrane covers the notch of the base and encloses a first cavity with the base.

As a further improved structure form, the valve body is further provided with a third cavity for accommodating the valve core, the valve core comprises a body and a supporting flap arranged on the periphery of the body, one side, far away from the body, of the supporting flap is fixedly connected with the inner side wall of the third cavity, a channel is formed by one side wall of the body and the valve membrane, and the driving assembly is connected with the body and drives the body to move along the direction perpendicular to the axial lead of the channel.

As a further improved structural form, the valve core is of a magnetic rubber structure, and the driving component is a magnet which can be magnetically connected with the valve core.

As another improved structure, the valve core is of a rubber structure, the driving assembly comprises a spring, a receiving coil, a transmitting coil and a signal generator, the signal generator is electrically connected with the transmitting coil, the receiving coil is electrically connected with the spring, and the receiving coil and the transmitting coil are electromagnetically coupled.

As a further improved structure form, the driving assembly further comprises a power amplifier electrically connected with the signal generator and the transmitting coil.

As a further improved structural form, the spring is made of shape memory alloy.

As a further improved structure form, the liquid working medium is water.

As a further improved structure form, the bladder support frame is also provided with a urethral orifice which penetrates through the base and the bladder support membrane and is communicated with the bladder.

As a further improved structure, the valve membrane is made of medical elastic material.

Compared with the prior art, the beneficial effects are:

on one hand, the invention can simulate the feedback mechanism of the sphincter, adaptively adjust the urethra locking force according to the amount of urine in the bladder, realize better locking effect on the urethra, prevent urine leakage and simultaneously avoid the damage to the urethral tissue caused by excessive extrusion; on the other hand, the urethra valve of the present invention does not require any further opening of the urethra or bladder, thereby avoiding tissue infection.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic view of the structural connection of a self-locking urethral valve according to example 1 of the present invention;

FIG. 2 illustrates the initial urethral occlusive state of the self-locking urethral valve of example 1 of the present invention in use;

FIG. 3 shows the urethra blockage state of the self-locking urethra valve according to example 1 of the present invention;

fig. 4 shows the urethra opening state in use of the self-locking urethra valve according to example 1 of the present invention;

fig. 5 is a schematic view showing the structural connection of the self-locking urethral valve according to embodiment 2 of the present invention.

Detailed Description

The drawings are for illustration purposes only and are not to be construed as limiting the invention; for the purpose of better illustrating the embodiments, certain features of the drawings may be omitted, enlarged or reduced, and do not represent the size of an actual product; it will be understood by those skilled in the art that certain well-known structures in the drawings and descriptions thereof may be omitted. The positional relationships depicted in the drawings are for illustrative purposes only and are not to be construed as limiting the invention.

The same or similar reference numerals in the drawings of the embodiments of the present invention correspond to the same or similar components; in the description of the present invention, it should be understood that if there are terms such as "upper", "lower", "left", "right", "long", "short", etc., indicating orientations or positional relationships based on the orientations or positional relationships shown in the drawings, it is only for convenience of description and simplicity of description, but does not indicate or imply that the device or element referred to must have a specific orientation, be constructed in a specific orientation, and be operated, and therefore, the terms describing the positional relationships in the drawings are only used for illustrative purposes and are not to be construed as limitations of the present patent, and specific meanings of the terms may be understood by those skilled in the art according to specific situations.

The technical scheme of the invention is further described in detail by the following specific embodiments in combination with the attached drawings:

example 1:

as shown in fig. 1 to 4, a self-locking urethral valve comprises a valve body 1, a valve core 2, a driving assembly 3 and a deformable bladder support 4 for supporting a bladder 200, wherein the bladder support 4 is provided with a first cavity 41, the valve body 1 is provided with a second cavity 11, the second cavity 11 is provided with a deformable valve membrane 12, and the valve core 2 is installed in the valve body 1 and forms a channel 5 for clamping a urethra 100 with the valve membrane 12; the valve core 2 is driven by the driving assembly 3 to move towards the direction far away from the channel 5, and the pipeline 6 is communicated with the first cavity 41 and the second cavity 11, the first cavity 41, the second cavity 11 and the pipeline 6 are filled with incompressible liquid working media, and the driving assembly 3 is connected with the valve core 2 and drives the valve core 2 to move towards the direction far away from the channel 5.

Wherein, the pipeline 6 can be made of medical rubber materials, and the pipeline 6 is relatively soft and can conveniently change the shape thereof so as to be implanted into a human body, reduce the wound area and avoid the wound from being infected.

The valve membrane 12 in this embodiment is made of a medical elastic material, the second cavity 11 is provided with a through hole, the valve membrane 12 is located in the through hole, and the outer edge of the valve membrane 12 is fixedly connected with the inner side wall of the through hole.

The bladder support 4 in this embodiment includes a base 42 provided with a notch and a deformable bladder support membrane 43 for abutting against the bladder 200, and the bladder support membrane 43 covers the notch of the base 42 and forms a first cavity 41 with the base 42. The base 42 can be made of medical non-metal materials, so that the base can be fixed on the pubis to effectively bear the bladder 200, and meanwhile, certain physiological compatibility is kept, and mechanical damage to internal organs is avoided; the bladder supporting membrane 43 can be made of medical elastic material, the outer periphery of the bladder supporting membrane 43 is fixed on the end face of the opening of the bladder support 4, when the bladder 200 supporting frame supports the bladder 200, the bladder supporting membrane 43 is positioned below the bladder 200 and directly bears the weight of the bladder 200, when the urine in the bladder 200 increases, the weight of the urine increases, so that the bladder supporting membrane 43 is pressed, the bladder supporting membrane 43 deforms downwards under pressure, therefore, the volume of the first cavity 41 is reduced, the working medium in the first cavity 41 flows into the second cavity 11 of the valve body 1 through the pipeline 6 after being pressed, because the second cavity 11 is filled with the working medium under the initial state, the flowing working medium presses the valve membrane 12 on the second cavity 11, the valve membrane 12 further presses the urethra 100, so that the locking force on the urethra 100 can be self-adaptively changed along with the amount of the urine in the bladder 200, and the feedback mechanism of the human body can be simulated, the locking force is reduced when the urine is small, the urethra 100 tissue is prevented from being excessively squeezed, the locking force is increased when the urine is large, the urine leakage is avoided, and the clinical application significance is great. It should be noted that the elastic force of the valve core 2 and the valve membrane 12 should just lock the urethra canal 100 when there is no urine in the bladder 200, which can be determined by the choice of the materials of the valve core 2 and the valve membrane 12 in the implementation and will not be described in detail herein.

Valve body 1 in this embodiment is fixed in on the pubis in the human body, valve body 1 still is provided with the third cavity 13 that is used for holding case 2, case 2 includes body 21 and sets up in the support lamella 22 of body 21 periphery, support lamella 22 and keep away from one side of body 21 and the inside wall fixed connection of third cavity 13, a lateral wall and the valve film 12 of body 21 form passageway 5, one side that body 21 deviates from valve film 12 is close to mutually with human skin, drive assembly 3 links to each other with body 21 and drives body 21 along the motion of perpendicular to 5 axial leads of passageway direction. Specifically, the valve element 2 in this embodiment is of a medical magnetic rubber structure, that is, a mixture of rubber and magnetic particles, and the driving component 3 is a magnet magnetically connectable to the valve element 2, and the magnet is located outside the human body. The body 21 can be limited in the third cavity 13 by the fixed connection of the supporting flap 22 and the inner wall of the third cavity 13, and when the magnet is close to the valve core 2, because the valve core 2 is made of magnetic rubber material and has certain elasticity, the body 21 deforms and moves towards the direction far away from the valve membrane 12 under the magnetic force of the magnet, so that the channel 5 formed between the body 21 and the valve membrane 12 is enlarged, that is, the urethra 100 can be opened for urination, after the urination is completed, the magnet is removed, the body 21 recovers the shape under the self elastic force, and the urethra 100 is locked; in addition, through the cooperation of the valve core 2 made of the magnetic rubber material and an external magnet, the urethra 100 can be clamped by the self-restoring force of the valve core 2 and the valve membrane 12, and the magnet is close to the valve core 2 when urination is needed, so that the structure of the urethra 100 valve is more compact, the occupied volume of the urethra valve is reduced, and the urethra valve is easier to implant into a human body.

The liquid working medium in this embodiment is water, because water is liquid, the volume is almost unchanged when receiving pressure, but it has certain fluidity, therefore, when the first cavity 41, the second cavity 11 and the pipeline 6 are filled with water, the first cavity 41 is deformed by the bladder support membrane 43 above and the volume is reduced, water moves towards the second cavity 11, so that the valve membrane 12 on the second cavity 11 is deformed, and the dropping of the bladder 200 generated by gravity action is transmitted to the valve membrane 12 through water flow to adjust the locking force of the urethra 100. It should be noted that, in this embodiment, water is used as the liquid working medium, which is only a reference implementation manner, and other types of liquid working mediums may also be used in the specific implementation process, which is not limited herein.

The support frame of the bladder 200 in this embodiment is further provided with a urethral orifice 44 penetrating the base 42 and the bladder support membrane 43 and communicating with the bladder 200, and the urethra 100 can pass through the urethral orifice 44, so that the support frame of the bladder 200 can be fixedly connected with the bladder 200.

The working process of the embodiment is as follows:

in the initial state, the elastic force of the valve core 2 and the channel 5 formed by the valve membrane 12 just clamp the urethra 100 (see fig. 2) to close the urethra 100; when the human body functions, urine in the bladder 200 is increased, the bladder 200 sags to press the bladder support membrane 43, the volume of the first cavity 41 is reduced, water in the first cavity 41 flows to the second cavity 11, water in the second cavity 11 is increased to press the valve membrane 12, and the valve membrane 12 deforms to reduce the channel 5, so that the locking force on the urethra 100 in the channel 5 can be increased, and the urethra is closed tightly (see fig. 3); when the magnet outside the body is close to the urethra 100 valve when urination is needed, under the magnetic force of the magnet, the body 21 of the valve core 2 moves to the direction far away from the channel 5, the channel 5 becomes large, and the urethra 100 is opened (see fig. 4); after the urination is finished, the magnet is removed, the body 21 loses the external force, and the elastic force of the body 21 itself makes the body 21 shape-recovered, i.e., moved to the direction close to the passage 5, thereby closing the urethra 100 again.

Example 2:

fig. 5 shows a second embodiment of a self-locking urethral valve, which comprises a valve body 1, a valve core 2, a driving assembly 3 and a deformable bladder support 4 for supporting a bladder 200, wherein the bladder support 4 is provided with a first cavity 41, the valve body 1 is provided with a second cavity 11, the second cavity 11 is provided with a deformable valve membrane 12, and the valve core 2 is arranged in the valve body 1 and forms a channel 5 for clamping a urethra 100 with the valve membrane 12; the valve core 2 is driven by the driving assembly 3 to move towards the direction far away from the channel 5, and the first cavity 41 and the second cavity 11 are communicated with each other through the pipeline 6, the first cavity 41, the second cavity 11 and the pipeline 6 are filled with incompressible working media, and the driving assembly 3 is connected with the valve core 2 and drives the valve core 2 to move towards the direction far away from the channel 5.

The bladder support 4 in this embodiment includes a base 42 provided with a notch and a deformable bladder support membrane 43 for abutting against the bladder 200, and the bladder support membrane 43 covers the notch of the base 42 and forms a first cavity 41 with the base 42.

The valve body 1 in this embodiment is further provided with a third cavity 13 for accommodating the valve core 2, the valve core 2 includes a body 21 and a supporting flap 22 disposed at the periphery of the body 21, one side of the supporting flap 22 away from the body 21 is fixedly connected with the inner side wall of the third cavity 13, one side wall of the body 21 and the valve membrane 12 form a channel 5, and the driving assembly 3 is connected with the body 21 and drives the body 21 to move along the direction perpendicular to the axial lead of the channel 5.

The valve core 2 in this embodiment is of a rubber structure, the driving assembly 3 includes a spring 31, a receiving coil 32, a transmitting coil 33 and a signal generator 34, the signal generator 34 is electrically connected to the transmitting coil 33, the receiving coil 32 is electrically connected to the spring 31, the receiving coil 32 is electromagnetically coupled to the transmitting coil 33, one end of the spring 31 is fixedly connected to the body 21, and the other end of the spring is fixedly connected to the inner side wall of the third cavity 13 far from the channel 5. Wherein, the spring 31 can be made of shape memory alloy such as nickel-titanium alloy, when the signal generator 34 sends out a signal, the transmitting coil 33 generates a magnetic field, the receiving coil 32 is in the magnetic field of the transmitting coil 33, thereby generating current due to electromagnetic induction effect, the current flows through the spring 31 to generate heat, the spring 31 generates contraction force after being heated to the temperature of the phase change point, namely the spring 31 contracts, and drives the body 21 to move in the direction far away from the channel 5, thereby opening the urethra 100, when the signal generator 34 stops sending out a signal, the temperature of the transmitting coil 33 is reduced, the contraction force of the spring 31 is reduced, namely the spring 31 is restored to the original state, the body 21 is restored to the original position under the action of self elastic force, and the urethra 100 is closed. The contraction force of the shape memory alloy is utilized to drive the body 21 to move, the driving force is large, the response is rapid, and the valve core 2 is made of rubber materials, so that the influence of magnetic materials in the body on the blood of a human body can be reduced. Of course, it is within the scope of the present disclosure to employ other types of drive structures to drive movement of the valve element 2, and therefore, will not be described in detail herein.

In order to amplify the signal power of the signal generator 34, the driving assembly 3 in this embodiment further includes a power amplifier 35 electrically connected to the signal generator 34 and the transmitting coil 33.

The working medium in this embodiment is water.

The support frame for the bladder 200 in this embodiment is further provided with a urethral orifice 44 which penetrates the base 42 and the bladder support membrane 43 and communicates with the bladder 200.

The valve membrane 12 in this embodiment is made of a medical grade elastic material.

Example 3:

the present embodiment differs from embodiment 1 or embodiment 2 only in that the working fluid in the present embodiment is physiological saline water. The physiological saline can be closer to the water environment in the human body, and the damage to the human body caused by the accidental leakage of the liquid working medium is avoided.

The present invention has been described with reference to flowchart illustrations or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems) and computer program products according to embodiments of the application, and it is understood that each flow or block of the flowchart illustrations or block diagrams, and combinations of flows or blocks in the flowchart illustrations or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, embedded processor, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

Although embodiments of the present invention have been shown and described above, it is understood that the above embodiments are exemplary and should not be construed as limiting the present invention, and that variations, modifications, substitutions and alterations can be made to the above embodiments by those of ordinary skill in the art within the scope of the present invention.

It should be understood that the above-described embodiments of the present invention are merely examples for clearly illustrating the present invention, and are not intended to limit the embodiments of the present invention. Other variations and modifications will be apparent to persons skilled in the art in light of the above description. And are neither required nor exhaustive of all embodiments. Any modification, equivalent replacement, and improvement made within the spirit and principle of the present invention should be included in the protection scope of the claims of the present invention.

Claims

1. The self-locking urethral valve is characterized by comprising a valve body (1), a valve core (2), a driving assembly (3) and a deformable bladder support (4) for supporting a bladder, wherein the bladder support (4) is provided with a first cavity (41), the valve body (1) is provided with a second cavity (11), the second cavity (11) is provided with a deformable valve membrane (12), and the valve core (2) is arranged in the valve body (1) and forms a channel (5) for clamping the urethra with the valve membrane (12); the valve core is characterized by further comprising a pipeline (6) communicated with the first cavity (41) and the second cavity (11), liquid working media are filled in the first cavity (41), the second cavity (11) and the pipeline (6), and the driving assembly (3) is connected with the valve core (2) and drives the valve core (2) to move in the direction far away from the channel (5).

2. A self-locking urethral valve according to claim 1, characterised in that the bladder support (4) comprises a base (42) provided with a slit and a bladder support membrane (43) adapted to abut the bladder and to deform, the bladder support membrane (43) covering the slit of the base (42) and enclosing the first cavity (41) with the base (42).

3. The self-locking urethral valve according to claim 2, wherein the valve body (1) is further provided with a third cavity (13) for accommodating the valve core (2), the valve core (2) comprises a body (21) and a supporting flap (22) arranged on the periphery of the body (21), one side of the supporting flap (22) far away from the body (21) is fixedly connected with the inner side wall of the third cavity (13), one side wall of the body (21) and the valve membrane (12) form the channel (5), and the driving assembly (3) is connected with the body (21) and drives the body (21) to move in the direction perpendicular to the axial lead of the channel (5).

4. A self-locking urethral valve according to claim 3, characterised in that the valve cartridge (2) is of magnetic rubber construction and the drive member (3) is a magnet which is magnetically connectable to the valve cartridge (2).

5. A self-locking urethral valve according to claim 3, wherein the valve body (2) is of a rubber structure, the driving member (3) comprises a spring (31), a receiving coil (32), a transmitting coil (33) and a signal generator (34), the signal generator (34) is electrically connected to the transmitting coil (33), the receiving coil (32) is electrically connected to the spring (31), the receiving coil (32) is electromagnetically coupled to the transmitting coil (33), one end of the spring (31) is fixedly connected to the body (21), and the other end of the spring is fixedly connected to the inner side wall of the third cavity (13) far from the channel (5).

6. A self-locking urethral valve according to claim 5, characterised in that the drive assembly (3) further comprises a power amplifier (35) electrically connected to the signal generator (34) and the transmitting coil (33).

7. A self-locking urethral valve according to claim 5, characterised in that the spring (31) is made of a shape memory alloy.

8. A self-locking urethral valve as claimed in any one of claims 4 to 7, characterised in that the liquid working substance is water.

9. A self-locking urethral valve as claimed in claim 8, characterised in that the bladder support frame is further provided with a urethral orifice (44) extending through the base (42) and bladder support membrane (43) and communicating with the bladder.

10. A self-locking urethral valve according to claim 9, characterised in that the valve membrane (12) is made of a medical grade elastic material.