Abstract
Occlusion characteristics of six infusion pumps commercially available in USA and Japan were examined at 10ml/h flow rate using an infusion analyzer. Flow volume, flow rate and pressure of an infusion pump were measured simultaneously and its occulusion profile was displayed. The time from beginning occlusion to activating alarm, occlusion alarm pressure and bolus volume were calculated from occlusion profiles of each pums. The occlusion alarm pressure of USA were 476-599mmHg and that of Japan pumps were 561-566mmHg. The range of occlusion alarm time were 88-344s (USA) and 478-545s (Japan). Bolus volume were 0.18-0.38ml (USA) and 1.16-1.34ml (Japan). Infusion devices of this country had a longer occasion alarm time and larger bolus volume. Using the evaluation indexes calculated from measured parameters, it was suggested that the cause of this was larger elastisity of Japanese infusion sets. The analysis by this system should be useful in quantitative evaluation the occlusion characteristics of the pumps commercially available or in designing.
