aIDEAS FAI Project

Fashionable Asthma Inhalers —How

aIDEAS has envisaged different ways of developing fashionable asthma inhalers (patent pending) which both enhance patient usability and commercialisation. The basic inhaler shape and appearance can be adapted to appeal to varied age groups and style preferences. Preliminary concepts include union jack, camouflage or child-friendly cartoon graphics.

Textures can be added to the decorative inhaler shell for blind or visually impaired patients, e.g. flexible rubber or plastic moulding to provide ridges, indents or embossing.

Plastic moulded decorative shells have been designed into child-friendly shapes, e.g. teddy-bear, bumble-bee and ladybird. The head and body of the toy can face the child and the combination of colour and style will reduce the fear of inhaler use. This has been further adapted to be a mounted plastic-moulded "clip-on" attachment fitted to the outer manufacturers shell to decorate for and calm children, whilst allowing original colour and label of inhaler to be visible.

The decorative shell is comprised of one or more pieces which assemble together to the outer. The mechanical design dimensions and materials that define the medical function of the device are maintained, so medical re-validation is not required and development costs are minimised. The workings of the inhaler are not altered: the mouth piece and the canister activation button remain free and the critical dimensions, including the distance from mouthpiece to patient mouth, angle of device use relative to the patient's face and mouth remain unchanged.

The aIDEAS FAI design allows for customisation of an existing medical device using cosmetic mechanical skins or shells. It allows improved patient usability and compliance via inclusive design and accessibility principles.

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