Patent ID: 8905985

Claim:
An apparatus for applying negative pressure to a wound, comprising: a source of negative pressure configured to be coupled to a dressing configured to be placed over the wound and to create a substantially fluid impermeable seal over the wound; and a controller configured to: activate the source of negative pressure to establish a desired negative pressure level under the dressing; deactivate the source of negative pressure when a pressure level under the dressing has reached the desired negative pressure level; in response to detecting a loss of negative pressure under the dressing due to a leak, periodically activate the source of negative pressure to restore the desired negative pressure level under the dressing; monitor a plurality of duty cycles of the source of negative pressure over a plurality of time durations; update a duty cycle metric of the source of negative pressure in response to comparing each duty cycle of the plurality of duty cycles to a duty cycle threshold; and in response to determining that the duty cycle metric exceeds an overload threshold, indicate that the leak has a flow rate that exceeds a flow threshold.