Project Description:

Monitored Anesthesia Care (MAC) refers to a sedative process in which patients are unconscious, but are still able to respond to certain stimuli. During such procedures, muscles in the tongue may relax, causing it to fall backwards, partially or completely blocking the trachea and making it difficult for patients to breathe. This is referred to as airway obstruction, and it occurs in over 4 million surgical cases around the US annually.

Manual maneuvers are commonly utilized by the medical staff in the operating room to clear this blockage. Although effective at times, these maneuvers take up the full attention of the attending anesthesia providers, rendering them unable to focus on other aspects of care.
Very few devices have been created to solve this issue from a non-invasive approach. The primary example is the Jaw Elevation Device (JED™: Hypnoz Therapeutic Device, CA). This device automates a jaw thrust maneuver but is poorly adopted due to its high cost, large size and inconvenience to use. Thus, there is still a significant lack of a solution to the issue.

Thus, team M.A.C. and Breathe has designed the Liftline, a compact, hands-free device that is able to maintain an open airway via a chin lift, a non-traumatic airway opening maneuver. The device is designed to be simple to implement and able to maintain the correct position of the head needed to keep the airway open without constant adjustments being needed. Additionally, it is compact and collapsible, allowing it to take up minimal space in the operating room environment, and allow for efficient storage. Testing has shown that the smart, ergonomic and compact design of the LiftLine presents significant potential of preventing wasted time during these critical moments.