Pharmacists' invention wins innovation prize
Bottle holder helps older patients apply pressure to expel drops |
An eye-drop bottle holder based on an idea from two pharmacists has won the Johnson & Johnson Award for Best Medical Device Innovation at the Medical Futures Innovations awards held in London last week.
The judges, including Dame Carol Black, president of the Royal College
of Physicians in England, and Sally Davis, director of research and development
at the Department of Health, said they were impressed by the simplicity,
effectiveness and affordability of the Opticare eye dispenser.
In looking into the difficulties patients experience using standard eye-drop
dispensers, Arthur Williams and Arthur Winfield carried out a survey
of 200, mostly elderly, patients at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, and found
that around half had problems using eye-drop
dispensers.
The two pharmacists then conducted tests to ascertain how much pressure
the patients were able to apply and how much force was required to push
a drop from an eye-drop bottle. They found that a fairly high proportion
of older people did not have the strength to apply sufficient force to
expel a drop. Mr Williams and Dr Winfield then began to develop a device
to help patients, initially using plastic and adhesive tape for their
prototypes, before working with engineers to develop a commercial product. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
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