Designing Medical Devices for Drug Delivery

Blog | Feb 23, 2010 | Anna Young

Design inspiration comes in many forms; for the D-Lab Health class the inspiration is usually, in some way, shape or form, linked to toys. The first week of prototyping for the spring semester of D-Lab Healthwas no exception! Last week, students were tasked to design four prototypes: a multi-dose nebulizer, a dual chamber syringe, a paper spacer and an inhaler modeled with a toy helicopter. The final prototypes were quite impressive! Below are photos from the presentations:

A nebulizer powered by a bicycle pump.
A nebulizer powered by a bicycle pump.

 

A sketch-up of a multidose nebulizer which will acurately dispense one dose of medicine per use.
A sketch-up of a multidose nebulizer which will acurately dispense one dose of medicine per use.

 

Explaining the functionality of the dual chamber syringe, which uses a plastic drawer to separately store the dry powder medicine from the liquid and then combine both before dispensing it to the patient.
Explaining the functionality of the dual chamber syringe, which uses a plastic drawer to separately store the dry powder medicine from the liquid and then combine both before dispensing it to the patient. 
A demonstration of how the dual chamber syringe works!
A demonstration of how the dual chamber syringe works!
A paper spacer used to slow the flow rate of an inhaler allowing children to more easliy inhale the medicine.
A paper spacer used to slow the flow rate of an inhaler allowing children to more easliy inhale the medicine.
A toy helicopter inhaler which uses air flow from the toy helicopter to dispense the medicine-- the fun way to deliver medicine!
A toy helicopter inhaler which uses air flow from the toy helicopter to dispense the medicine-- the  fun way to deliver medcine!

Thanks to D-Lab staff member Nathan Cooke for taking the above photos during the D-Lab Health class on February 16.