11433 results about "Apparatus instruments" patented technology

A steerable medical instrument includes a control handle, a shaft, steering control wires, and an end effector at the distal end of the shaft. The end effector is a separate component engineered to distribute the stress and strain of bending moments along the length of the end effector to achieve predicable, repeatable, fine motion control over the distal end of the instrument. The end effector may be customized for any medical application. For example, the end effector may comprise a grasping device, a cutting devise, a snare, a specimen retrieval device, or a wound closure device (such as a stapler).

The present invention provides improved medical devices equipped with a visualization device for intubation, extubation, ventilation, drug delivery, feeding and continuous remote monitoring of a patient. The present invention also provides methods for rapid and accurate placement of a medical device in a patient and continuous real time monitoring, including a remote monitoring, of the patient after the placement.

Disclosed is a method and apparatus for automatically adjusting drug infusion rate to optimize treatment therapy. The implantable medical device can communicate with a database or algorithm controlled by a caregiver or physician. Thus, the caregiver may request a therapy change (e.g., infusion rate versus time, pump clock settings, etc.) or a therapy management module may automatically activate the therapy change at some future time for convenience, or for technical or clinical reasons.

An ultrasound system comprises an ultrasound unit including: an ultrasound probe (20) for acquiring an anatomical image of a human body and for locating a medical instrument (5) with respect to said image, the ultrasound probe (20) including a first set of imaging transducer elements (550) and a second set of localisation transducer elements (551A, 551B), wherein the first set of imaging transducer elements are distinct and disjoint from the second set of localisation transducer elements, wherein: the first set of imaging transducer elements are configured to: produce ultrasound imaging transmissions into the human body, wherein the ultrasound imaging transmissions are focussed into an image scan plane (25), and receive reflections of the ultrasound imaging transmissions for generating a two-dimensional anatomical image corresponding to the image scan plane; and wherein the second set of localisation transducer elements are configured to produce ultrasound localisation transmissions into the human body for locating the medical instrument (5) with respect to the anatomical image, wherein the ultrasound localisation transmissions extend outside the image scan plane, and wherein at least two transducer elements from said second set are spaced from one other in a direction perpendicular to the image scan plane; and a sensor console (65) for receiving the signals from said transducer that correspond to the localisation transmissions; wherein the ultrasound system is configured to process the received signals to determine the location of the medical instrument (5) within the human body relative to the ultrasound probe based on the received signals.