The impact of our findings was obvious—an MDI’s performance must factor into products designed to work with it.
Philips
Metered Dose Inhaler Research
While the industry was working under the assumption that all metered dose inhalers (MDIs) were more or less identical, Philips had the suspicion that, in fact, not all MDIs work the same way. In other words, the industry operated as though all MDIs, regardless of medicine, emitted the same sized plume of aerosol at the same velocity with the same spread over the same distance. Humanfactors set out to dispel this long held myth, and we did so by capturing the performance of a dozen typical MDIs using high-speed photography and video. The impact of our findings was obvious - the performance of a particular MDI must be factored into any products designed to work with it. How could we do otherwise?
Aerosol Observation
Breaking down the aerosol’s behavior frame by frame enabled us to analyze its behavior. The plume’s volume, spread and dispersion, speed, trajectory, and other metrics have a direct impact on the MDI’s performance when integrated with respiratory products.
Aerosol Analyzation
Each aerosol volume’s performance was compared, from MDI depression to plume decay. Each MDI test was repeated and its results averaged to simplify comparing the MDI group’s performance.
MDI Market
A diversity of MDIs from a variety of manufacturers was tested in order to provide a comprehensive understanding of performance within this product range.
Experimental Setup
Setting up the experiment was simple, though conditions had to be tightly controlled in order to consistently reproduce MDI performance.
