Wireless footswitches in the operating theatre

Linemaster have been manufacturing footswitches for the medical market for many years and are universally acknowledged as a world leader in this field.

In preparing for a medical procedure, there is often a good deal of manual setting-up and alignment to be carried out before commitment is made. This will nearly always involve both of the operator's hands leaving only the foot to initiate the function. This is particularly true for surgical procedures, and the surgeon using high frequency or laser tools needs an ergonomically designed footswitch assembly freeing their concentration for the procedure in hand.

Traditional assemblies usually contained a pair of footswitches in a composite housing which was then connected to the cutting tool equipment using a trailing cable. In today's modern operating theatre there are many pieces of equipment all with some form of connecting cables which trail around the floor area. This poses a hazard the theatre staff and by consequence to the patient.

In an effort to ease this situation Linemaster has designed a 'wireless' footswitch which uses Infra Red technology which will not effect existing electronic equipment. The assembly comes in two parts; the footswitch/sender and the receiver. Each pair of sender/receivers are allocated a frequency channel, and additional pairs can be safely used in the same environment by allocating different channels.

The IR technology does not rely on 'line-of-sight' alignment between sender and receiver which allows the equipment to be placed anywhere within the theatre.

This technology will have applications outside of the medical field, so if you require further information in any field please contact our technical staff.