PIRA
Education - Umeå Institute of Design
Year - 2013 (10 weeks)
Project partner - Carlos Arturo Torres Tovar
PIRA (Preterm Infant Respiratory Aid) is an portable resuscitation system that supports premature infant's first minutes of life and can be used by a single person even at remote areas.
What is CPAP?
CPAP (Continues Positive Airway Pressure) is a treatment that uses mild, warm air pressure to keep the airways open. CPAP is often used on preterm infants whose lungs have not been fully developed. One could use the metaphor of filling a balloon with air to explain CPAP. The first push of air is quite exhausting but once there is a small amount of air in the balloon and it has expanded it gets easier to fill it with air. CPAP works the same way. It fills the infants lugns with just enough air so he/she can breathe by themselves and continue to develop the strength of their lugns.
“You can barely see that the baby is breathing when it’s born because of the small air volumes, so you might ventilate even though you know you shouldn’t. You might wait for a minute but then you start to panic”.
- Annika Nyholm, Care developer at Umeå University Hospital
Golden minute
We wanted to promote the usage of the CPAP treatment on the first minutes of life by creating a seamless transition between CPAP and mechanical ventilation so the infant could get the CPAP air quality from the very beginning and being assisted with mechanical ventilation only when it is needed.
A fresh start
PIRA consists of a Monitor + Puff that delivers a real time heart rate lecture of the patient and an estimate blood oxygen saturation. Controls the peep ( nominal ) and maximum pressure of the CPAP ventilator. Incorporates a PUFF button to perform a more effective and precise dosage using CPAP quality air. It can also be detached / attached to assist the patient in case of a secondary abnea.
PIRA provides a good sealing for the airflow and is quick and easy to apply on the infant during the “golden minutes“ where every second matters.
With real-time information of heart-rate from the heart-light, mechanical ventilation usage can be minimized and only used when necessary.