COVID-19: Dental patients may wear CASCS to aspirate drops

To protect dentists from coronavirus catchment, patients could soon be asked to wear open-faced helmets to aspirate the cough-laden drops of COVID.

Developed by experts at Cornell University in New York, the disposable, transparent helmets are connected to a pump that creates a reverse airflow around the head.

This ensures that any potentially infected droplets are trapped in the airflow that enters through the mouth opening and cannot escape from the hull.

Along with dentists, the concept could also be used by so-called otorhinolaryngologists (ear, nose and throat doctors), who also need access to patients ’heads and necks.

Healthcare professionals have a higher risk of COVID-19 infection because they often come into contact with symptomatic or asymptomatic patients.

Currently, the protection comes from N95 masks and face protectors, along with the use of empty clinical rooms or rooms called “negative pressure” with air filtration.

However, experts have warned that such measures are costly and often neither highly effective nor affordable, unlike the new safety helmet.

To protect dentists from coronavirus uptake, patients could soon be asked to wear open-faced helmets to aspirate the coveted COVID-laden drops, as depicted

The helmet designed by the team it is connected to its crown by a medical grade air filtration pump that creates the reverse flow of air that prevents cough drops from coming out of the hull.

Using a computer-based fluid dynamics simulation, the researchers determined that the helmet would be able to hold 99.6% of the drops emitted when the wearer coughed in a tenth of a second.

“To put it in context, if we use the same air pump to create a negative pressure insulation room, it will take about 45 minutes to remove 99% of the pollutants transmitted by the air from the room,” said the author and engineer of the document Mahdi Esmaily.

The design has a 0.04-inch (1-millimeter) thick, transparent housing that completely closes the head and neck, except for the vacuum port and the opening that allows access to the mouth.

A nozzle connected to the access port to the mouth serves to extend the distance that the drops must travel against the flow, thus minimizing the possibility of escaping the hull through the opening.

At the same time, this allows for a smoother flow transition that reduces patient discomfort generated by air turbulence, the researchers said.

The hull could also reduce the costs of operations by replacing current practices, such as building negative pressure chambers with air filtration, which can cost tens of thousands of pounds.

The costs of each helmet could be as cheap as a couple of dollars (about £ 1.50) if made with a disposable material, the researchers said.

Medical grade high efficiency particulate filter (HEPA) negative air machines designed to power helmets are readily available and cost about £ 740 ($ 1,000).

Healthcare professionals have a higher risk of COVID-19 infection because they often come into contact with symptomatic or asymptomatic patients. Currently, the protection comes from N95 masks and face protectors, along with the use of empty clinical rooms or rooms called “negative pressure” with air filtration. However, experts have warned that such measures are costly and often neither highly effective nor accessible, unlike the new safety helmet.

“Our next step is to refine the design of the hull for greater efficiency and wider application,” explained paper author and mechanical engineer Dongjie Jia, also of Cornell University.

“After that, we plan to build helmet prototypes and perform experiments to verify our simulation predictions.”

Meanwhile, the simulation framework used to evaluate the hull concept could be used to study other designs and phenomena related to particles, the team added.

The full findings of the study were published in the journal Physics of Fluids.