Designing and manufacturing of a user friendly and affordable nasal suction machine for Acute Bronchiolitis treatment of children in Oman

Abstract

Acute Bronchiolitis is a disease which usually infects children of the age 0 to 6 years old. The patients infected by this disease require medical attention at hospitals. The patients must be admitted in the hospitals for a period of 2-3 days. Parents of the patients must stay in the hospital along with them. This causes lack of hospital beds, more expense of the hospital to provide extra food for the parents. By a qualitative research, it was found that parents would want an affordable device so that they could care for their children from home instead of staying at the hospital. Parents from all over Oman come to the capital so that their children can be treated. Children also tend to get exposed to more sickness by being around sick children at the hospital. Taking this problem into consideration, a circuit has been designed in such a way it was easy to use and that it could be used by parents to treat their children at home without the need to visit a hospital. The circuit works on Arduino Uno and has various pre-existing modules attached to it , the estimated cost of the device is far lesser than what the mainstream industrial devices cost. The device consists of a Bluetooth Module for the purpose of connectivity via cellphone ,a 12V vacuum pump to suck the mucus out of the patient’s lungs, variable resistor to control the force of vacuum and a rubber tube capable of fitting into the nostril to allow suction of mucus. This simple device made from the counter parts can offer significant benefits to patients affected by Acute Bronchitis.