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:
Oct. 09, 2001
Filed:
May. 10, 1996
David M. Rapoport, New York, NY (US);
Robert G. Norman, New Windsor, NY (US);
Roger A. Gruenke, Overland Park, KS (US);
Other;
Abstract
In the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea, a method and apparatus are disclosed for optimizing the controlled positive pressure to minimize the flow of air from a flow generator while still ensuring that flow limitation in the patient's airway does not occur. In particular, the invention relates to a breathing device and method of use to adjust a controlled positive pressure to the airway of a patient by detecting flow limitation from analysis of an inspiratory flow waveform. Once the presence of flow limitation has been analyzed, the system determines an action to take for adjustment of the controlled positive pressure. The pressure setting is raised, lowered or maintained depending on whether flow limitation has been detected and on the previous actions taken by the system. The preferred breathing apparatus consists of a flow generator, a flow sensor, an analog to digital converter, a microprocessor, and a pressure controller, a patient supply hose, a nasal fitting, and, optionally, a pressure transducer. Using the method of the present invention, the microprocessor adjusts the air pressure in the patient supply hose when flow limitation is detected in the airway of the patient.