JP2002239005A - Breathing gas supplier - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a breathing gas supplier for supplying breathing gas only when a user such as a patient inhales and enable the user to effectively inhale it corresponding to the breathing cycle of the patient even in the case that the user breathes through either or both of the nose and the mouth. SOLUTION: This breathing gas supplier is provided with an identifying function part for identifying whether the breathing of the user is nose breathing or mouth breathing and is provided with the function of supplying the breathing gas to the nostrils and/or the mouth part through an open type supply means corresponding to an identified result.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an oxygen concentrator such as an oxygen concentrator which uses an adsorbent for selectively adsorbing oxygen or nitrogen and enriches oxygen from air by a pressure fluctuation adsorption system and supplies the oxygen to a patient or the like. The present invention relates to a breathing gas supply device. More specifically, it is a device that supplies respiratory gas only during inhalation in response to a user's respiratory cycle, and detects and identifies the respiratory path (nasal and oral) together with the user's respiratory phase. The present invention relates to a respiratory gas supply device for supplying respiratory gas to a patient's nares and / or mouth in response to respiration.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, the number of patients suffering from respiratory diseases such as asthma, emphysema and chronic bronchitis tends to increase.
One of the effective treatment methods is inhalation therapy of respiratory gas with high oxygen concentration. Respiratory gas supply devices such as oxygen concentrators that concentrate and separate oxygen-enriched gas from air have been developed, and home medical equipment. It is becoming more and more popular.

[0003] Since it is often used every day in general households for a long period of time, there is a demand for a power-saving type in which the operation cost of the apparatus is small, and a small and lightweight apparatus suitable for housing conditions in Japan. As one of the measures to fundamentally solve such demands, it is possible to supply oxygen-enriched gas only during inhalation in response to the user's respiratory cycle as described in There has been proposed a method of preventing the release of an oxygen-enriched gas and improving the efficiency of the apparatus.
However, this method detects respiratory information of a user such as a patient using a nasal canula attached to the end of a tube extended from the oxygen concentrator, and introduces oxygen-enriched gas into the nostril only when the user inhales. Therefore, when the user takes a mouth breath at bedtime or the like, the breath information cannot be detected.

[0004] Even if the breathing information can be detected by some other means, the oxygen-enriched gas is supplied to the nostrils that are not breathing. Therefore, the user must effectively inhale the oxygen-enriched gas. This method has serious drawbacks, such as a decrease in blood oxygen concentration due to the inability to carry out respiratory gas supply such as home medical oxygen concentrators that may be used all day, even at bedtime. There is a situation where it cannot be practically adopted for the device.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-described problems, and can cope with a patient's respiratory cycle even when a patient such as a patient breathes in either or both of the nose and mouth. The respiratory gas supply device is designed to supply respiratory gas only when the user inhales and to allow the user to inhale the gas effectively.

[0006]

Means for Solving the Problems The inventors of the present invention have conducted intensive studies on such a problem, and as a result, in a device for supplying respiratory gas only when a user such as a patient inhales, the respiratory phase of the user together with the respiratory phase of the user is determined. Detect routes (nasal and oral),
The problem is solved by identifying and supplying breathing gas to the user's nostrils and / or mouth in response to the breathing.

That is, according to the present invention, there is provided a conduit having a means for generating breathing gas, one end communicating with the generating means, and an open type supply means for the breathing gas at the other end, and an automatic opening / closing valve means on the way. Means, a respiratory phase detecting means having a function of detecting at least a part of a predetermined phase in respiration, and a control means for controlling the automatic opening and closing valve means based on the detection result of the respiratory phase detecting means, In a respiratory gas supply device for supplying a respiratory gas to a user, the respiratory gas supply device includes an identification function unit that identifies whether the user's breathing is nasal breathing or mouth breathing, and the identification function unit is provided on a nostril and / or mouth according to the identification result. A respiratory gas supply device characterized by having a function of supplying respiratory gas via an open type supply means.

The open supply means has a nostril supply means and a mouth supply means, and the conduit means has a nostril supply means,
A separate flow path to the mouth supply means is provided, and the automatic opening / closing valve means is a flow path opening / closing function section and the nostril supply means,
It is intended to provide a breathing gas supply device comprising a flow path selection function section for selecting a flow path to the mouth supply means.

[0009] Further, the identification function section is a means for detecting a pressure fluctuation between separate flow paths to the nostril supply means and the mouth supply means of the conduit means, wherein the supply of breathing gas is performed. An apparatus is provided.

[0010] Also, the respiratory gas supply device is characterized in that the flow path selecting function section is means for controlling the flow rate of the respiratory gas flowing through each flow path according to the identification result of the identification function section. To provide.

The open supply means comprises a nostril supply means and a mouth supply means, and the conduit means has separate flow paths to the nostril supply means and the mouth supply means. An object of the present invention is to provide a respiratory gas supply device comprising an automatic on-off valve means and a respiratory phase detecting means.

[0012] By the means of the present invention, even when breathing is performed in one or both of the nose and mouth, the breathing gas can be supplied to the user accurately and effectively during inhalation. Sometimes you can use it with confidence,
It is possible to realize a breathing gas supply device that supplies a breathing gas only during inhalation, thereby achieving epoch-making power savings and a reduction in size and weight by reducing the amount of breathing gas to be supplied.

[0013]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION
For example, an oxygen concentrator that supplies an oxygen-enriched gas from air to a user, and that supplies an oxygen-enriched gas only at the time of inhalation in response to the respiratory cycle of a user such as a patient, What is claimed is: 1. An oxygen concentrator comprising: means for supplying respiratory gas to a patient's nares and / or mouth in response to nose and mouth breathing so that a concentrated gas is effectively inhaled by a user. .

In such an apparatus, the means for generating respiratory gas comprises, for example, an adsorption bed filled with an adsorbent capable of selectively adsorbing oxygen or nitrogen, and a compressor for supplying pressurized air to the adsorption bed. Adsorption type oxygen concentrating means can be mentioned. In addition, the present invention can be applied to means for generating and generating various kinds of respiratory gases, and those having compositions of various kinds of respiratory gases, including those in which a respiratory gas is stored in a container, such as high-pressure oxygen gas and liquefied oxygen.

The open-type supply means for the respiratory gas can supply the respiratory gas to the user's nares and mouth in an unsealed state, that is, in a state of being opened to the atmosphere. It is a mouth-nose canula that combines two conventional nasal cannulas, the tip of the nose side branches for left and right nostrils like the conventional nasal canula, and the tip of the mouth side detects mouth breathing and One type of nozzle is designed so that the supply of breathing gas is more effective.

The automatic opening / closing valve means has a function of opening and closing the flow path, and guides the breathing gas to a connection flow path communicating with the nose and mouth side openings of the open-type supply means. It is preferable to have a mechanism such as an AC-excited solenoid valve, an air-operated automatic valve, or a pilot-operated solenoid valve. Among them, the movement of the iron core is slow, the life is good, and the noise generated during operation is low and the noise is low. A DC excitation type and an AC excitation type, which are advantageous in terms of countermeasures, are preferable. A specific example of the means for providing the flow path selection function is, for example, an electromagnetic flow path selector that selects the flow path by moving the position of the partition plate in a fan shape as in 2b of the embodiment. Further, not only one of the flow paths is selected, but also a means for allowing the flow rate of the passing fluid to be apportioned to each flow path by, for example, a method of positioning a partition plate between the two. can give.

The respiratory phase detecting means may be any means having a function of detecting the expiration and the cycle of expiration during breathing. As a specific example, the expiration and inspiration passages may be used. Means for detecting values that change based on breathing, such as pressure, temperature, and humidity, may be used. Other examples include those based on gas flow characteristics such as a fluid logic element.

There are two types of pressure-based detection means: one for detecting pressure fluctuations and one for measuring pressure itself. The former is practically preferable, and the one that detects the rate of change of pressure is particularly sensitive. It is effective in raising. As a means for detecting pressure fluctuation, for example, there is a pressure fluctuation detecting means provided with a diaphragm or the like in communication with a nostril which is a flow path through which expiration and inspiration passes and a conduit having an opening at the mouth.

Some diaphragm type minute pressure fluctuation detecting means uses a metal material such as stainless steel, but other than this, a pressure or differential pressure is measured by a capacitance change as described in JP-A-01-021330. And a polymer film surface-treated with a dielectric substance for use as a diaphragm. In particular, in the case of a detecting means using such a polymer film as a diaphragm, the detecting means is suitable for detecting a slight pressure and a fluctuation of a small differential pressure of about several Pascals. In addition, a conduit communicating with such a respiratory phase detecting means and the other end communicating with an open type supply means to the nostrils and the mouth is separate from a conduit means for supplying breathing gas to the nostrils and the mouth. It is also possible to provide both functions in a single conduit means.

The function of identifying the respiratory route (nasal and oral) is provided, for example, in the respiratory phase detecting means, but may be provided in the control means of the automatic opening / closing valve, or the functions may be shared with each other.

As a specific example attached to the respiratory phase detecting means, there is one in which the two spaces separated by the diaphragm and the respective conduits communicating with the open type supply means are separately connected. In this case, for example, there is a method in which it is possible to determine from the direction of change (increase or decrease) of the capacitance value, the bending direction of the diaphragm, that is, whether breathing is performed by the nose or the mouth. Means that can cope with the case where breathing is performed by both the nose and the mouth include, for example, a space surrounded by diaphragms of three spaces partitioned by the two diaphragms communicates with the atmosphere, and the other two spaces. One space is in separate communication with each conduit communicating with the nose and mouth openings of the open supply means.

Means for detecting a temperature change for detecting the respiratory phase include a means such as a thermocouple in which a temperature sensing member is separately placed in the passages of expiration and inspiration at the nose and mouth, that is, in the respiratory airflow. Can be As a specific example of the means for providing a function of identifying whether the breathing is performed by the nose or the mouth in the detecting means, there is a method of identifying from the installation location of the thermocouple in which the electromotive force is generated. Further, as an example of the means for detecting the fluctuation of humidity, there is a method using a hygrometer.

Among these, the pressure fluctuation detecting means is convenient because the fluctuation can be detected at a position remote from the respiratory airflow at the nostrils and the mouth. Particularly, the conduit means for detecting the pressure fluctuation is provided by a breathing gas. There is an advantage that can be shared with the conduit means for supplying the water.

The predetermined phase of at least a part of the respiration detected by the respiration phase detecting means includes the time of starting inspiration, the time of starting expiration, and the like. In particular, detection of the start of inspiration as a predetermined phase is practically advantageous because the supply of breathing gas can be stably performed in association with inspiration.

The control means for the automatic on-off valve controls the opening and closing of the flow path in response to the start of inhalation and the like and controls the selection of the flow path corresponding to the respiratory path based on the respiration information obtained by the detection means. If the breathing is performed by both the nose and the mouth and information about the relative ratio of each degree of breathing can be obtained by the detecting means, the flow of the fluid passing through the flow path selecting means can be obtained. For example, the flow rate selection means of the automatic on-off valve can be controlled so as to apportion the flow rate to each flow path according to the degree.

Further, humidifying means for humidifying the respiratory gas passing therethrough in the conduit means of the respiratory gas supply apparatus of the present invention, tank means for temporarily storing respiratory gas and pressure buffering, In some cases, a device equipped with a part or all of the measurement / control means and the like may be practically advantageous.

The feature of the respiratory gas supply device of the present invention is that an automatic opening / closing valve means provided in the middle of a respiratory gas supply conduit corresponding to nose and mouth breathing based on the result of detection and identification by the respiratory phase detecting means. Opening and closing and selecting a flow path, so as to intermittently supply the respiratory gas to the nostrils or mouth at least in part of the inspiratory phase, Means are provided for realizing a reduction in size and weight.

[0028]

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a breathing gas supply apparatus according to the present invention. However, the present invention is not limited to these examples.

In FIG. 1 and FIG. 2, the oxygen-enriched gas from the oxygen-enriched gas generating means 1 comprising a pressure-fluctuation adsorption type oxygen-enriching means detects the respiratory phase by detecting the pressure fluctuation and identifies the input side of the information. It passes through the demand valve 2 controlled by the demand controller 3 based on the detection / identification result of the pressure fluctuation sensor 4. Further, it is supplied by the open type supply means of the nostril cannula 6 through the extension tube 5. The demand valve 2 includes an electromagnetic switching valve 2a having an opening / closing function of an oxygen-enriched gas flow path and an electromagnetic flow path selector 2b having a function of selecting a flow path. The description of the oxygen-enriched gas generating means 1 itself is omitted in FIGS. 1 and 2.

In FIG. 1, arrows indicate the flow of breathing information, control signals, and breathing gas when breathing is performed by mouth. Pressure fluctuation due to mouth breathing
b and the pressure change sensor 4 via the mouth-side conduit 5b of the extension tube 5. The control signal from the demand controller 3 based on the detection / identification result of the pressure fluctuation sensor 4 is transmitted to the electromagnetic selector 2b and the electromagnetic opening / closing valve 2a of the demand valve 2.
The position of the flow path selecting partition plate of the electromagnetic flow path selector 2b is selected so that the oxygen-enriched gas is supplied to the mouth, and the electromagnetic opening / closing valve 2a is opened for a predetermined time. During this time, the oxygen-enriched gas passes through the electromagnetic on-off valve 2a of the demand valve 2, and flows through the mouth-side line 5b of the extension tube 5 and the mouth-side line 6b of the nostril cannula 6 according to the flow path selection by the electromagnetic flow path selector 2b. Is supplied to the mouth of a user such as a patient through the opening.

In FIG. 2, arrows indicate the flow of breath information, control signals, and breathing gas when breathing is performed through the nose. Pressure fluctuation due to nasal respiration is in the nasal channel 6 of the nostril cannula 6
a and the pressure fluctuation sensor 4 via the nasal channel 5a of the extension tube 5. A control signal from the demand controller 3 based on the detection and identification results of the pressure fluctuation sensor 4 is transmitted to the electromagnetic flow path selector 2b and the electromagnetic opening / closing valve 2a of the demand valve 2, and the electromagnetic flow is supplied so that oxygen-enriched gas is supplied to the nostrils. The position of the flow path selection partition plate of the path selector 2b is selected, and the electromagnetic on-off valve 2a is opened for a certain time. During this time, the oxygen-enriched gas passes through the electromagnetic on-off valve 2a of the demand valve 2, and the nose-side line 5a of the extension tube 5 and the nose-side line 6a of the nostril cannula 6 according to the flow path selection by the electromagnetic flow path selector 2b.
And is supplied to the user's nares from the opening.

[0032]

According to the respiratory gas supply device of the present invention, the respiratory gas is supplied to the user such as a patient accurately and effectively at the time of inhalation, even when the respiration is performed by one or both of the nose and the mouth. It is possible to realize a breathing gas supply device that supplies breathing gas only at the time of inhalation, which can be used safely even at bedtime, and epoch-making power saving by reducing the supply amount of breathing gas. Advantages such as downsizing and downsizing of the device can be realized.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of a breathing supply device of the present invention during mouth breathing.

FIG. 2 is a schematic illustration of a respiratory supply device of the present invention during nasal breathing.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────の Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification symbol FI Theme coat ゛ (Reference) A61M 16/00366 A61M 16/00 366 16/06 16/06 CD 16/10 16/10 B

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. Respiratory gas generating means, conduit means having one end communicating with the generating means, open-type supply means for the respiratory gas at the other end, and automatic opening and closing valve means on the way, And a control means for controlling the automatic opening / closing valve means based on a detection result of the respiration phase detection means, and A respiratory gas supply device for supplying a gas for use, comprising an identification function unit for identifying whether the user's breath is nasal breathing or mouth breathing, and a nostril and / or
Alternatively, a respiratory gas supply device having a function of supplying respiratory gas to the mouth via the open type supply means. 2. The open type supply means has a nostril supply means and a mouth supply means, the conduit means has separate flow paths to the nostril supply means and the mouth supply means, and the automatic opening and closing means. The respiratory gas supply according to claim 1, wherein the valve means includes a flow path opening / closing function section, the nostril supply means, and a flow path selection function section for selecting a flow path to the mouth supply means. apparatus. 3. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the identification function section is means for detecting a pressure change between separate flow paths to the nostril supply means and the mouth supply means of the conduit means. A respiratory gas supply device as described in the above. 4. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein said flow path selection function section is means for controlling a flow rate of a breathing gas flowing through each flow path in accordance with an identification result of said identification function section. A respiratory gas supply device according to claim 1. 5. The open supply means comprises a nostril supply means and a mouth supply means, and the conduit means has separate flow paths to the nostril supply means and the mouth supply means. 2. The respiratory gas supply device according to claim 1, further comprising an automatic opening / closing valve means and a respiratory phase detecting means.