Improving the design of medical devices used by asthmatic children

Asthma is a chronic disease that affects 5.4M sufferers in the UK alone. Control of the disease can be achieved by administrating drugs (bronchodilators) using pressurised Metered Dose inhalers, often enhanced by the combined use of asthma spacer devices. These devices are mostly effective in children but their design is old, cumbersome and difficult to use, which leads to a low treatment intake with increased risk of serious complications. Using modelling and experimental approaches the project will investigate the link between spacer design, patient-specific respiratory system anatomy, and drug delivery. The aim is to ultimately develop a computational framework for the identification of effective and personalised devices that are easy to use, portable, discrete, attractive to the younger population, cost effective, easy to manufacture, disposable and with low environmental impact. The project is in collaboration with ELAROS (NHS spin-off company), the Sheffield Pulmonary Vascular Disease Unit (national NHS referral centre for Clinical Pulmonary Imaging) and the Sheffield Children's Hospital.