Good news for patients who are advised to stay on a ventilator. They can now breathe comfortably by using this mini ventilator. The world’s cheapest and smallest ventilator, developed by AIIMS in collaboration with a private company, can easily fit into your pocket, according to PTI. This invention is the is the brainchild of Dr Deepak Agrawal, professor in the department of neurosurgery at AIIMS, who joined with Diwakar Vaish, a robotics researcher at A-SET Robotics to make the device. Diwakar Vaish (25) said, “It is almost 450 times smaller than the conventional ventilators and can be moved around easily,” as per Hindustan Times.
“There are lot of patients in AIIMS and in hospitals across India who are required to be on ventilator for a prolonged period and are unable to arrange them because of the exorbitant costs and the technical expertise required to operate them. “We have 10 to 15 such patients in the neuro-surgery department itself who are on ventilator for the last two years or more,” said Dr Agrawal. This ventilator is easy to use and soon will be available in the market for a price at less than Rs 15,000. “We are using the ventilator on some patients as pilot,” he added. Currently, a basic ventilators is priced above 2.5 lakhs in the market, as per PTI.
The ventilator can be controlled with an Android app and it uses an artificial intelligence algorithm to adjust air supply for normal breathing of the patient, as per HT. Vaish said, “There is no requirement for oxygen cylinders, which cost between Rs 3,000 and Rs 4,000 a day.” “It works by pushing the atmospheric air into the lungs of the patients who cannot breathe on their own. The disposable ventilators currently in use also push in air, but they do it at a fixed frequency that does not necessarily match the patient’s breathing pattern, which may cause low oxygen saturation. This device synchronises ventilator air support with the normal breathing pattern,” Dr Agrawal was quoted as saying by HT.