It is a simple combination of medical advances and demographics that has caused a great increase in the need for crushing pre-formed medication tablets for proper ingestion by patients having diminished swallowing capabilities. At one point, medications, such as “headache powders” were dispensed in a powdered form. As the technology of the pharmaceutical industry improved, it became possible to form very carefully measured dosages of the medications in a compressed, pre-formed tablet. While the tablet is extremely useful to the pharmaceutical manufacturer in dispensing precise numbers of dosages that can be handled in a clean and efficient manner, the tablet may present significant difficulties to the patient, especially the elderly, the weakened and those with swallowing difficulties. As the number of medications increases, the number of patients who have difficulty with swallowing has also increased.
A number of devices in the prior art are available, including several that are produced by the owner of this application. These devices commonly provide a lever action that juxtaposes a pair of faces, between which the tablet or pill is placed. In a medical institutional setting, these devices are useful when they are used in a preparation room, but they tend to be too bulky and/or too noisy to use in a patient room, where it is often necessary to prepare the dosage without disturbing the patient. Being able to do this while obtaining a small average particle size, with substantially all particles being able to pass a small screen, is an ongoing challenge in the industry.
In many of the prior art solutions, the devices act to bring the opposing faces together in a substantially vertical plane. As a result, particles that are broken away from the pill, especially in the initial breakage, can fall by gravity out of the field where the most active crushing is occurring. This can result in no further, or secondary, crushing of the particle, with the result of a larger average particle size.
It is therefore an advantage of the embodiments disclosed herein to provide a pill crushing device that provides at least some of the desired objectives.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds