A device designed for secure extubation for patients in states of muscular relaxation RTC-2014-2806-1

A device designed for secure extubation for patients who have been induced into a state of muscular relaxation as an anaesthetic technique.

This project involves the manufacture of a medical device, which takes the form of a simple compressive wristband to measure blood pressure (NIBP) in a non-invasive way, and which also includes all the stimulation and sensorial elements that until now, with the devices available on the market, anaesthetists need to manually induce on the patient’s body.

Given that hospitals are currently facing a situation of continually increasing numbers of annual surgical interventions, the fundamental objective of this medical device is to guarantee avoiding the dangerous situation of premature extubation in patients during these operations, a circumstance that leads to a high risk of patients consequently suffering post-surgery complications.

This pressure band, which has electrodes on the outside to stimulate and register the degree of patient anastesia during surgical interventions has been developed for this reason. The electrodes are directly imprinted on the band and connected to the equipment from the inside, so it has to be connected between the inside and outside of the device to perform the electrode stimulation and monitoring.

The objective of this project is to develop a compressive wristband incorporating imprinted electrodes which stimulate and register the degree of muscular relaxation in patients during surgical interventions with general anastesia.The main goal aimed for in development is to achieve the production of a multi-layer electrostimulation electrode which can be mass produced through serigraphy.

Several different areas will be addressed at the same time in order to reach this objective, including:

1. a) The simplification of the multi-layer structure
   b) Improvements in the rheological properties of dyes used to print each of the layers making up of the previous structure.
   c) Optimization in the curation process of these dyes, such as
   d) Industrial scaling of the whole process through the integration of a continuous industrial printing process, using a roll-to-roll format as an industrial machinery printing platform.

This project was financed by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, in accordance with article 31 of the regulations set out under the General Grants Law 38/2003 of 17 November, approved by Royal Decree 887/2006 of 21 July.