Patent DE-19655224-B4 (DE)
Title: Home dialysis machine components and methods of operation - where the machine includes water treatment, dialysate preparation and disinfection systems in user friendly, efficient and affordable haemodialysis package
Inventor: KENLEY RODNEY S
IPC: A61M1/14
Filed: 1996-02-13
Granted: 2006-11-16
Abstract: Dialysis apparatus which includes water pre-treatment (20), dialysate preparation (26) and an extra corporeal circuit (28), for circulating blood from a patient through a dialysis circuit and back to the patient is described in detail and the following different inventions in, or for, a dialysis machine are claimed: (a) a water pre-treatment apparatus in which hot and cold water is fed to a thermostatically controlled mixing valve which feeds water at controlled temperature through a filter to the water inlet of the dialysis machine; (b) methods of disinfecting a dialysis machine by placing the patient ends of the arterial and venous blood lines into communication with a source of hot water which is circulated through the lines, the water treatment module and the dialysate circuit; (c) as (b) with the hot water being filtered in a reverse osmosis unit in the water treatment module (24) before it is heated; (d) a connector for establishing connection of disinfection fluid line to the arterial and venous blood lines, in which the connector has a space about the blood line ends to provide disinfection of the exterior surfaces of the ends; (e) apparatus for supply of chemicals to a dialysate tank form three vessels via a housing having two ports for passage of chemicals from two of the vessels and a third port to which the third vessel, which contains dialysate chemical, salt, nutritional supplement, medication, cleaning agent or disinfecting agent, is attached; (f) a dialysate preparation apparatus including a dialysate preparation tank and a vessel containing a batch of chemical with a device which automatically introduces the batch of chemical into the tank; (g) a bottle for a unit batch of medical chemical and a machine readable indicator attached to the bottle carrying cooled information of the bottle contents; (h) a system for applying chemicals to a dialysis tank which accepts a bottle as in (g) and has a vertically movable spike and a device for removing the machine readable indicator; (i) system as in (h) in which the indicator is read prior to applying the chemical to the tank and the patient alerted if the information does not correspond to appropriate stored information; (j) method of separating old and new dialysate in a tank by conditioning the two types to two different temperatures; (k) method of operating the dialyser by periodically pumping fluid through the dialysis membrane from the dialysis side to remove blood products from the blood side; (l) method of dialysis in which priming fluid and blood are pumped through respective circuits of the membrane to prevent priming fluid reaching the patient; (m) a method of testing the integrity of a dialysate filter by pressurising the membrane with air and monitoring the rate of decrease of pressure; (n) a method of approximating the sodium clearance of a dialyser by circulating sodium solution and water on respective sides of the membrane and measuring the sodium solution conductivity once conditions have stabilised; (o) apparatus for in-situ cleaning of dialyser and tubing set after dialysis without exposing the dialyser or tubing set to airborne contaminants; and (p) cleaning a reusable extra corporeal circuit installed in a dialyser by back flushing and cyclically changing flow rate and direction of flow of cleaning fluid.