Boc Health Care, Inc.

The Boc Group, Inc.

Ronald L Tobia

Russell J Fischer

Michael D Leshner

Robert T Chilcoat

A medical ventilator is provided which continuously controls both inspiratory and expiratory flow and pressure, including positive end expiratory pressure (PEEP), through control of a single inspiratory flow-control valve. This valve controls inspiratory flow and pressure and, during expiration, controls expiratory flow and pressure by controlling the pressure within the back chamber of an expiratory diaphragm or balloon-type valve. Feedback signals preferably are provided to the valve's controller to provide inspiratory closed-loop flow control and continuous inspiratory and expiratory closed-loop pressure control.

Medical ventilator

A medical ventilator is provided for providing continuous, closed-loop control of the pressure of gas within a patient's mouth or respiratory tract in accordance with any selected pressure input waveform. The medical ventilator comprises an adaptive, feedback controller which provides independent control of the inspiratory and expiratory branches of the ventilator, while continuously controlling mouth pressure. The digital coefficients of the controller are updated to adjust for variations in the resistance of the patient's respiratory tract resulting from the magnitude of flow of inspiratory gas into the tract and patient-to-patient differences. Pressure in the expiratory branch is controlled by controlling, through a pressure-regulating valve, the magnitude of back pressure applied to a diaphragm valve. A venturi provides a reference pressure for the pressure-regulating valve below that of the surrounding atmosphere to enable application of a negative back pressure to the diaphragm valve.

An intermittent suction device for removing fluids from a patient where the duty cycle between the OFF and ON cycles is controlled by a magnetically susceptible diaphragm that switches back and forth between first and second positions, representing ON and OFF positions, by controlling the differential pressure across the diaphragm. The diaphragm is biased toward it first position by a permanent magnet that acts to attract the flexible diaphragm. The device has few moving parts and its duty cycle and overall cycle times are easily adjusted by the user.

Magneto-pneumatic intermittent suction device

A magneto-pneumatic timing device is disclosed that provides a pressure signal alternating between a high and a low pressure output signal. The duty cycle may be varied as well as the overall cycle time. A magnetically biased flexible diaphragm divides a chamber into a pair of subchambers and the differential pressure between the subchambers is controlled to cause the flexible diaphragm to pull away from the magnetic bias to one position and to return to its biased position. Control of the output pressure signal is carried out by varying the resistance in certain of the pneumatic passages that are part of the control function for the differential pressure. The device is relatively simple and inexpensive to construct and features very few moving parts, thus it is reliable and capable of high production, low cost manufacture.

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Aberdeen, NJ, United States of America

Ronald L Tobia