Nurse’s invention will help asthma sufferers
A NURSE whose daughter nearly died of an asthma attack has invented a new device set to transform the lives of other sufferers.
Paul Watson knew he had to do something when his little girl Katherine was almost killed by the chronic disease six years ago.
Despite what doctors told him, his parental instincts and nursing background told him it wasn’t just the asthma she was struggling with – but the way she was taking the medication.
Katherine was first prescribed inhalers to treat the disease 11 years ago, when she was just six-months-old. As she got older and continued to suffer asthma attacks, Paul and his wife Clair were told to up the dosage, but when Katherine was five-years-old she became extremely poorly and was rushed to hospital.
Paul, 36, who manages the school nursing service for West Norfolk and Breckland from Exton’s Road, Lynn, said: “I’ve seen a lot of poorly children but I’ve never seen a child as poorly as her.
“She couldn’t stand up, she was blue. It was really scary and it was then that I thought ‘enough was enough’.”
It turned out Katherine had been unable to take her medication properly, and an asthma spacer she used with her inhaler was causing the drug to build up at the back of her throat – causing an allergic reaction.
Spacers are designed to make inhalers easier to use and help deliver the medicine into the lungs.
But children often find them complicated to use, and they are bulky to carry round.
Now Paul has designed a new compact spacer, called the Pocketflow Spacer, which is easier for youngsters to use.
He came up with the prototype in his garden shed in just 90 minutes, and now five years later it is set to go into commercial production for the first time.
He has been helped by Health Enterprise East, the region’s NHS innovation hub, which has invested more than £100,000 into the design, and it will be produced by Vivo Smart Medical Devices.
Paul said: “Yes it will be nice to hopefully make some money from it, but that’s not my motivation.
“If we see it in the street or the playground and Katherine says ‘my dad did that’ then nothing would make me happier.”
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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