New Spacer Deisgn for Inhalers

 I'm an avid news follower, and saw an article about a new design for a spacer. It seems that four college students developed it for a contest at the University of Utah's Bench to Bedside Medical Device competition. 

One of the students has asthma and hated having to use his spacer when he was growing up. Spacers are big and bulky, and you have to be coordinated to be able to breath in and depress the inhaler at the right time. 

Some people just aren't coordinated. Kind of like how I can't walk and chew gum at the same time! 

For you to get the most medicine from your inhaler, you need a spacer.

For those of you new to asthma, a spacer looks like a clear tube and it attaches to an inhaler. When you take a puff of your inhaler, the medicine is sprayed into the tube, and you SLOWLY inhale it out of the tube. 

It will whistle if you inhale too quickly. 

The propellant comes out over 50 miles per hour, so using a spacer allows you to get the medicine down into your lungs - instead of it ending up in the back of your throat.

Spacers are big and bulky and not easy to carry around. The students in the medical device competition designed a small white inhaler that is about the size of a cell phone, so you can easily slide it in your pocket. 

Great for guys (who actually have pockets in their clothes!) 

For us women, it wouldn't take up much room in our purses. I choose a new purse based on if there is room for my spacer and inhaler and epinephrine.) 

These students were pretty creative to design something new. They beat out U of U graduate students and medical students. They won $15,000 for their spacer and another $5,000 for best business plan. To read about the article, click here. 

I am excited to buy one of these when they are finally mass produced. I'll take 4 please. 

One for me and one for each of my kids that have asthma.