Classifications

• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A61—MEDICAL OR VETERINARY SCIENCE; HYGIENE
  • A61F—FILTERS IMPLANTABLE INTO BLOOD VESSELS; PROSTHESES; DEVICES PROVIDING PATENCY TO, OR PREVENTING COLLAPSING OF, TUBULAR STRUCTURES OF THE BODY, e.g. STENTS; ORTHOPAEDIC, NURSING OR CONTRACEPTIVE DEVICES; FOMENTATION; TREATMENT OR PROTECTION OF EYES OR EARS; BANDAGES, DRESSINGS OR ABSORBENT PADS; FIRST-AID KITS
  • A61F11/00—Methods or devices for treatment of the ears or hearing sense; Non-electric hearing aids; Methods or devices for enabling ear patients to achieve auditory perception through physiological senses other than hearing sense; Protective devices for the ears, carried on the body or in the hand
  • A61F11/06—Protective devices for the ears
  • A61F11/08—Protective devices for the ears internal, e.g. earplugs
• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A61—MEDICAL OR VETERINARY SCIENCE; HYGIENE
  • A61F—FILTERS IMPLANTABLE INTO BLOOD VESSELS; PROSTHESES; DEVICES PROVIDING PATENCY TO, OR PREVENTING COLLAPSING OF, TUBULAR STRUCTURES OF THE BODY, e.g. STENTS; ORTHOPAEDIC, NURSING OR CONTRACEPTIVE DEVICES; FOMENTATION; TREATMENT OR PROTECTION OF EYES OR EARS; BANDAGES, DRESSINGS OR ABSORBENT PADS; FIRST-AID KITS
  • A61F11/00—Methods or devices for treatment of the ears or hearing sense; Non-electric hearing aids; Methods or devices for enabling ear patients to achieve auditory perception through physiological senses other than hearing sense; Protective devices for the ears, carried on the body or in the hand
  • A61F11/06—Protective devices for the ears
  • A61F11/08—Protective devices for the ears internal, e.g. earplugs
  • A61F11/085—Protective devices for the ears internal, e.g. earplugs including an inner channel
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
  • G10K—SOUND-PRODUCING DEVICES; METHODS OR DEVICES FOR PROTECTING AGAINST, OR FOR DAMPING, NOISE OR OTHER ACOUSTIC WAVES IN GENERAL; ACOUSTICS NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • G10K11/00—Methods or devices for transmitting, conducting or directing sound in general; Methods or devices for protecting against, or for damping, noise or other acoustic waves in general
  • G10K11/16—Methods or devices for protecting against, or for damping, noise or other acoustic waves in general
  • G10K11/172—Methods or devices for protecting against, or for damping, noise or other acoustic waves in general using resonance effects
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
  • G10K—SOUND-PRODUCING DEVICES; METHODS OR DEVICES FOR PROTECTING AGAINST, OR FOR DAMPING, NOISE OR OTHER ACOUSTIC WAVES IN GENERAL; ACOUSTICS NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • G10K11/00—Methods or devices for transmitting, conducting or directing sound in general; Methods or devices for protecting against, or for damping, noise or other acoustic waves in general
  • G10K11/18—Methods or devices for transmitting, conducting or directing sound
  • G10K11/22—Methods or devices for transmitting, conducting or directing sound for conducting sound through hollow pipes, e.g. speaking tubes

Definitions

• the present invention relates to a device for use by a dental patient to reduce the perceived sound volume of a dental drill, and in particular to a passive device which can optionally allow the user to continue to hear a personal music player and/or to communicate with the dentist.
• a visit to the dentist is an anxiety-inducing affair, and the noise of the dental drill is a significant cause of this anxiety. Accordingly, a device which can reduce the perceived sound volume of the drill is also likely to be useful in reducing levels of anxiety. Ideally, such a device will also allow the patient to be able to listen to their own music (for example played on an MP3 player) and/or continue to communicate with the dentist.
• Conventional noise-cancelling headphones are designed to deal with noise frequencies well below 1 kHz, such as that experienced inside aircraft cabins. Dental drills rotate at speeds reaching beyond 200,000 rpm, and produce noise peak frequencies in the region of 3-6 kHz that are of relatively high power and hence very distinctive.
• EP 0933007 A1 discloses an ear muffler device comprising a pair of muffler tubes in the form of headphones.
• the muffler tubes are configured to isolate the ear canal from ambient air and to reduce the acoustic impedance at the entrance of the ear canal across a wide range of frequencies.
• the device is bulky and looks uncomfortable and unattractive to wear.
• US 2006/0042867 A1 discloses a hearing protection ear plug to be worn in the ear canal having an acoustic filter element and a resonance cavity which is individually designed for the acoustic requirements of the user. Accordingly, such a device would be impracticable as a mass-manufactured item for use by any of a plurality of users.
• US 4437538 A1 discloses an ear cap which includes a cushion formed of an elastic and porous material in combination with a perforated disk defining a cavity to attenuate the sound passing through the device.
• noise cancelling device which is smaller in size than prior art devices, passive (and therefore easy and inexpensive to operate) and which can optionally allow the user to continue to listen to a personal music player and/to the dentist. It will be appreciated that such a device would have noise cancelling uses which go beyond those of a dental patient.
• a device for use by a dental patient to reduce the perceived sound volume of a dental drill which device comprises a body having a first port for communication with the external auditory canal of the patient's ear, a vent for communication with the external environment, a first channel connecting the first port and the vent, at least one resonator tube having a first end and a second end, wherein the first end is proximate to and in communication with the first channel and the second end is closed, and wherein the resonator tube is curved along at least part of its longitudinal axis in order to reduce the length of a straight line from the first end to the second end.
• the device comprises a plurality of resonator tubes and ideally each of the resonator tubes is curved as defined above.
• the provision of the plurality of tubes enables the noise cancelling effect of the device to be maximized, whilst retaining the compact form.
• the device may include a set of said resonator tubes which are disposed in the same plane (in other words, a layer of tubes) and the plane is preferably normal to the longitudinal axis of the channel.
• a set of tubes enables a plurality of tubes to be provided in a particularly compact form.
• the device comprises a plurality of said sets, more preferably from 2 to 5 sets and most preferably three sets of resonator tubes. It has been discovered that the provision of a plurality of sets results in a device which is particularly effective at cancelling noise, with two layers being better than one and three layers being better than two.
• the number of resonator tubes in each set may range independently from three to five, and preferably each set has the same number of resonator tubes.
• at least two of the resonator tubes may have the same length as each other, and there may be a plurality of pairs of resonator tubes of the same length within the set.
• the tube or tubes have a spiral or helical configuration. This has been found to be a particularly effective way to maximize the noise cancelling effect of the tubes whilst miniaturizing the device.
• the body of the device additionally comprises a second port into which sound can be played, and an audio communication route from the first port to the second port.
• a personal music player such as an MP3 player can be connected directly to a second port in order that the patient can listen to music to calm their nerves whilst the dentist is operating the drill.
• the second channel may connect the second port to the first channel.
• Figure 1 shows a cross section through a noise cancellation device in accordance with the invention
• Figure 2 is an external 3D render of a device as shown in Figure 1 ;
• Figure 3 is a schematic render of a cross section through B-B in Figure 1 ;
• Figure 4 is an end view of an alternative device in accordance with the invention;
• Figure 5 is a cross-sectional view through B-B in Figure 4, showing a device with a single layer of resonator tubes;
• Figure 6 is a cross-sectional view through B-B of an alternative device to that shown Figure 4, showing a device with a double layer of resonator tubes;
• a noise cancellation device 10 comprises a cylindrical drum 30 of diameter 18.6mm having cylindrical protrusion 20 of diameter 5.6mm sharing a common longitudinal axis with and connected to drum 30 by curved shoulder 40.
• a channel is formed along the longitudinal axis of device 10 through drum 30 and protrusion 20 with the channel opening at vent 1 1 in the face of drum 30 and opening at port 12 in the face of protrusion 20.
• the internal diameter of this channel is about 3.00mm at vent 1 1 and about 3.90mm at port 12. It should be noted that noise cancellation device 10 is a laboratory model and is therefore larger in size than the envisaged production model of the device.
• a further vent namely music vent 13 is formed in the external face of drum 30 offset from vent 1 1 towards the periphery of drum 30.
• Music vent 13 forms a chamber internally in device 10 and then connects via music channel 14 with port 12.
• the version number is moulded at 16.
• Drum 30 also incorporates three layers 50 of resonator tubes 15, with five tubes 15 in each layer 50.
• resonator tubes 15 are in a spiral configuration with vent 1 1 at the centre of each spiral and perpendicular to the plane of each layer 50.
• the resonator tubes are 1 .6mm or 2.00mm wide by 1 .15mm deep and range in length from 8.5mm to 19mm.
• Noise cancellation device 10 is used as follows:
• Protrusion 20 is carefully fitted into the patient's external auditory canal so that port 12 aligns with the canal. It will be appreciated that shoulder 40 and drum 30 are shaped so as to prevent device 10 being pushed too far into the patient's canal and inadvertently causing damage.
• External noise (such as the noise of a dentist's drill) passing through vent 1 1 has to pass through layers 50 of resonator tube 15 before exiting the device at port 12 and passing into the patient's ear canal.
• layers 50 of resonator tubes 15 act as quarter-wave resonators and filter out the frequencies of the drill. At the same time, they act as the low-pass filter to enable speech frequencies to pass through to the patient's ear, which means that the patient can still hear the dentist speaking.
• the output from a personal musical player can be fitted to music vent 13 in which case musical sound produced by this device bypasses the resonator tubes 15 via music channel 14 to pass through ports 12 into the patient's ear canal without being attenuated by device 10.
• a personal musical player such as an MP3 Player
• musical sound produced by this device bypasses the resonator tubes 15 via music channel 14 to pass through ports 12 into the patient's ear canal without being attenuated by device 10.
• the patient can listen to music whilst having the sound of the drill blocked out.
• EXAMPLE 1 Two devices were tested which were identical apart from the number of layers of resonator tubes.
• the device 50 shown in Figure 5 had a single layer 55 5mm wide of five resonator tubes and the device 60 shown in Figure 6 had a double layer 65 of five resonator tubes in each layer (each layer being 2.4mm wide so that it fits in the same space as the single layer of Fig. 5). Both devices looked identical from the end view, and that is shown in Figure 4.
• the devices did not have a separate music vent or channel. Music could be played through the central vent 51 ,61 along with the ambient sound.
• Each device was fitted with a 'fir tree' seal (also known as a 'polybud' and easily available from, for example, Canford Audio pic in the UK) and earphone (see Figure 4).
• a 'fir tree' seal also known as a 'polybud' and easily available from, for example, Canford Audio pic in the UK
• earphone see Figure 4
• Figure 7 shows the greater noise reduction effect achieved with a 2-layer device (v16x) compared to a 1 -layer device (v15x), particularly over 2.5 kHz.
• the 2-layer device reduces the white noise recorded with no device to a lower level than the 1 - layer device (v15x).

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• Health & Medical Sciences (AREA)
• Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Acoustics & Sound (AREA)
• Life Sciences & Earth Sciences (AREA)
• Multimedia (AREA)
• Psychology (AREA)
• Otolaryngology (AREA)
• Biophysics (AREA)
• Biomedical Technology (AREA)
• Heart & Thoracic Surgery (AREA)
• Vascular Medicine (AREA)
• Animal Behavior & Ethology (AREA)
• General Health & Medical Sciences (AREA)
• Public Health (AREA)
• Veterinary Medicine (AREA)
• Dental Tools And Instruments Or Auxiliary Dental Instruments (AREA)

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Citations (5)

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• 2013
  • 2013-07-24 GB GBGB1313187.5A patent/GB201313187D0/en not_active Ceased
• 2014
  • 2014-07-18 WO PCT/GB2014/052198 patent/WO2015011449A1/en not_active Ceased
  • 2014-07-18 BR BR112016001577-0A patent/BR112016001577B1/pt not_active IP Right Cessation
  • 2014-07-18 EP EP14750603.4A patent/EP3025326B1/en not_active Not-in-force
• 2016
  • 2016-01-25 US US15/005,536 patent/US10271994B2/en active Active

Patent Citations (5)

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