DESCRIPTION

The Cardio Inflator is a non-surgical emergency room fixture used to re-inflate a collapsed heart or cardiac blood vessel. Here, we concentrate on the cardiac artery.

The Cardio Inflator is akin to an iron lung where negative pressure draws air into the patient's lungs. With the airway blocked, instead of the lungs inflating with air, the cardiac artery fills with blood (along with the heart and all blood-carrying cavities of the torso).

COMPONENTS

The mechanism is fitted with a handle-operated bellows to work during a power failure.

The essential parts are:
Torso chamber
Leg boots - seals the legs to prevent air entry
Neck boot - seals the neck opening
Both leg and neck boots may be sized per patient for
insertion in standardized leg and neck panels so the
apertures vary but the overall size is fixed
Leg panel - fits leg boots
Neck panel - fits the neck boot
Leg blanks - for patients lacking one or both legs

OPERATION

The patient is fitted with a neck boot and leg boots (possibly arm boots as well) after being set into the torso chamber. The neck panel slots into the torso chamber over the neck boot. The leg panel does the same for the legs. One operator closes off the patient's nose and mouth. The bellows operator pulls out on the handle. Negative pressure draws fluid (blood, in this case) into the torso and the previously collapsed cardiac artery inflates.

Blood must be drawn from the legs (and perhaps arms), making it important that these remain outside the torso chamber. The head remains outside so that airway control is easily maintained.

Rather than perform an invasive balloon inflation to expand the cardiac artery, the Cardio Inflator engorges all vessels within the torso using blood within the patient.

IMPLICATIONS

It is easy to extrapolate the use of a standard heart-lung machine to this purpose. If a patient's airway is blocked upon compression into the torso chamber, the heart should be compressed, forcing blood to flow to the body. With unblocked airway, the device acts as an iron lung. By alternating cycles, the Cardio Inflator might perform both lung and heart functions. Integrating a blood flow measurement device or heart volume measurement instrument should make the device safer for the patient.

OPPORTUNITIES

With no patients to conduct tests, it is uncertain whether the Cardio Inflator will work as envisioned. If it does, it can be made a powered device quite simply.