The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 05, 2020
Filed:
Jul. 20, 2015
Fresenius Medical Care Deutschland Gmbh, Bad Homburg, DE;
Andreas Maierhofer, Schweinfurt, DE;
Fresenius Medical Care Deutschland GmbH, Bad Homburg, DE;
Abstract
The invention relates to a device and a method for detecting the direction of fluid flow through a dialyserwhich comprises a blood chamber, through which blood flows, and a dialysate chamber, through which dialysate flows, which are separated from one another by a semi-permeable membrane. In addition, the invention relates to an extracorporeal blood treatment device comprising a device for detecting the flow direction. A first aspect of the invention is to measure the clearance in order to detect the flow direction and to compare the measured clearance with a specified limit value, a flow direction in countercurrent flow being concluded if the clearance is greater than the specified limit value. This aspect is based on the finding that in the case of blood treatment in practice with operation of the dialyser in co-current flow, clearance values above a certain limit value can no longer be achieved. A second aspect of the invention is to measure the clearance to detect the flow direction and to change the flow rate of the dialysate. Checking the flow direction according to the second aspect is based on the comparison of the measured change in clearance with a calculated expected value of the change in clearance for operation of the dialyser in both countercurrent flow and co-current flow. The invention according to the second aspect is based on the finding that the amount of the relative change in clearance in the event of a change in dialysate rate is always greater in the case of operation in co-current flow than in countercurrent flow.