Patent Application
20210338178
The present invention relates generally to protecting persons from bodily injuries relating to falls, and more particularly, to a device providing a privacy screen for use during toileting activities by a person being monitored for fall prevention purposes.
Falling is a significant cause of mortality or injury among patients recovering from surgery, the elderly and the infirm, especially within a hospital or a caregiving facility. Injuries and death due to falls are an issue that every hospital in the world faces. In-patient falls cost US health systems over $34 billion annually. It has been estimated that 1 million falls occur in North American hospitals annually. With implementation of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service No-Pay Policy for expenses related to hospital-acquired falls, hospitals are responsible for all fall-related costs.
Studies have shown that falls and the resulting injuries very frequently occur in the bathroom during toileting activities. Accordingly, some hospitals or other care facilities place patients on a fall precaution watch based on clinical or other findings. The fall precaution watch may result in implementation of a protocol or procedures intended to increase the likelihood that a patient fall will be avoided. For example, the fall precaution watch may involve implementation of a procedure by which a patient is instructed to alert a nurse/caregiver before rising from bed and/or engaging in toileting activities, and the nurse/caregiver is obligated to accompany the patient at all times while ambulating to the bathroom, and to join the patient in the bathroom during toileting activities so that the patient can be very closely monitored so that the nurse/caregiver can provide immediate assistance in the event of a loss of balance etc. to avoid a patient fall and injury.
While this approach may be helpful, there may be compliance issues, in that the patient may avoid alerting the nurse/caregiver because the patient does not want to suffer the corresponding loss of privacy of having a nurse/caregiver join the patient in the bathroom during toileting activities. Further, the patient may not want the nurse/caregiver to remain in close proximity to the patient during toileting activities, even if the nurse/caregiver is present in the bathroom, to retain a measure of privacy. Accordingly, implementation of a fall precaution policy, or application of fall precautions to a particular patient, may not be as effective as desired at avoiding patient falls and resulting injuries.
What is needed is a device that provides for enhanced patient privacy while being supervised during toileting activities, so that fall precaution policies are more closely followed and/or are more effective in avoiding patient falls and resulting injuries.
The present invention provides an adjustable privacy screen device that provides for enhanced patient privacy while being supervised during toileting activities, so that fall precaution policies are more closely followed and/or are more effective in avoiding patient falls and resulting injuries. In one embodiment, the adjustable privacy screen comprises: an elongated support member having a first end and a second end opposite said first end, said elongated support member being configurable to vary a length between said first end and said second end; and a drape releasably attachable to said support member. The adjustable privacy screen may include an alarm system comprising: a sensor mounted on said support member; a signaling device; and a controller mounted on said support member and operatively connected to the sensor to cause said signaling device to provide an alert signal to the caregiver upon detection of a predetermined condition by the sensor.
An understanding of the following description will be facilitated by reference to the attached drawings, in which:
The present invention provides a privacy screen that provides for enhanced patient privacy while being supervised during toileting activities, so that fall precaution policies are more closely followed and/or are more effective in avoiding patient falls and resulting injuries. The privacy screen is adjustable for use in a wide variety of bathroom environments of different dimensions. Further, the privacy screen is configured to provide privacy by acting as a support for a privacy drape while also providing the patient ease of passage so as not to act as a restraint upon patient ambulation during egress from a bathroom. In certain embodiments, the privacy screen includes a sensor and an alarm for issuing an alert signal upon detection of touch and/or movement by the patient, so as to alert a nurse/caregiver that the patient is beginning to ambulate and/or exit the bathroom after toileting activities without assistance, e.g., if the event that the attending nurse/caregiver is distracted or moves out of a line of sight with the patient.
Referring now to the exemplary and illustrative non-limiting embodiment shown in the drawings, an adjustable privacy screen 100 is shown in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. As will be appreciated from
The privacy screen 100 is length-adjustable so as to span a range of widths of bathroom environments in which the privacy screen may be used. In part, the exemplary privacy screen 100 is length-adjustable in that the rigid support member 110 is length-adjustable. In this embodiment, the rigid support member 110 is constructed as a pair of nested telescoping tubes 110a, 110b configured such that they may be adjusted in position relative to one another and then be locked into selected relative positions. Any suitable structures may be used to provide this functionality. In the exemplary embodiment, the rigid support member 110 is structured and operable similarly to a conventional adjustable shower rod, so that the tubes can be rotated about their axis of elongation to unlock the tubes 110a, 110b, at which point one tube may be translated along the axis of elongation relative to the other, and then the tubes can be counter-rotated about their axis of elongation to interlock the tubes and fix them into relative positions. In this manner, the length of the support member can be increased or decreased to correspond to the width of an opening between adjacent walls of a bathroom between which the privacy screen is intended to be installed.
In the embodiment, the privacy screen 100 is also length-adjustable due in part to the flexibility of the semi-rigid brace members 120a, 120b. Each semi-rigid brace member 120a, 120b extends from a respective end 112a, 112b of the tubes of the rigid support member 110. Each semi-rigid brace member 120a, 120b, is a reasonably stiff, but readily manually, bendable member, such manual force associated with inserting the privacy screen 100 between adjacent walls causes the semi-rigid brace members 120a, 120b to bend, and then tend to resile, to effectively wedge the privacy screen 100 between the adjacent walls. Notably, this type of construction provides sufficient friction with the walls to support the privacy screen 100 (including any privacy drape) between the walls, while also avoiding a situation in which the privacy screen is fixedly attached to the walls in a manner that could serve as a restraint impeding a patient from passing by the privacy screen or existing the bathroom, because the privacy screen may be easily dislodged from between the walls by simple application of manual force by hand, waist, hip, leg, etc., without a need to apply the force in any particular direction or manner. The semi-rigid brace members 120a, 120b may have any suitable construction. In the exemplary embodiment, each semi-rigid brace member 120a, 120b is constructed to include a semi-rigid, e.g., braided, steel stranded, wire that provides the rigidity, flexibility and tendency to resile when bent, and a rubber or other relatively high-friction coating or covering on the wire, to promote friction between the semi-rigid brace member 120a, 120b and the wall of the bathroom, which may be a fairly low-friction surface, such as ceramic tile.
Preferably, the support member 110 and any semi-rigid support members 120a, 120b are constructed of materials that can be easily cleaned for disinfection purposes, so that the support member 110 can be reused for a single patient or across multiple patients without significant cross-contamination concerns. Various materials are suitable for this purpose, as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art.
Optionally, the adjustable privacy screen 100 may be used in conjunction with supportive legs 160, as shown in
In certain embodiments, the privacy screen 100 further includes an alarm system for alerting an attending nurse/caregiver that the patient is ready to or beginning to ambulate and/or to exit the bathroom or pass by the privacy screen. Accordingly, in such embodiments, the privacy screen 110 further includes a sensor 170 mounted on the support member 110, a signaling device 174 mounted on the support member 110 and operable to provide an audible and/or visible signal to an attending nurse/caregiver, such as an audible alarm sound, and a controller 178 mounted on or in the support member 100 and operatively connected to the sensor 170 and the signaling device 174, and operable to detect touch and/or pressure on the sensor 170 by the patient and responsively activate the signaling device 174 to provide an alert signal to the attending nurse/caregiver in the event of a detected touch/pressure by the sensor 170. Any suitable hardware and/or software may be incorporated to provide this alarm system functionality.
In certain embodiments, the privacy screen 100 is further configured to collapse after a predetermined time, and/or in response to applied pressure to the privacy screen/support member 110 itself. In this embodiment, the support member 110 is configured to operate very similar to “crash bars” used in sensitive areas of a hospital such as the ED and Maternity Units. More particularly, the privacy screen 100 includes an audible alarm and sensor that is configured to sense applied pressure/weight. The sensor is mounted on and/or spans the support member 110, which would always be positioned directly in front of the patient during normal use. When the nurse/caregiver assists the patient to the toilet area, he/she can activate the sensor by placing the privacy bar and drape upright and in position on the walls. This automatically configures the sensor so that it is not dependent upon the caregiver remembering to manually activate the sensor or not. When pressure/weight is applied to the support member 110 (e.g., as a patient prepares or attempts to exist the toilet area), the alarm activates and after a few (e.g., 10-15) seconds, the support member 110 and drape collapses by way of a mechanism on the support member that ceases to outwardly bias the inner support member 110b (or at least one of the semi-rigid brace members 120a, 120b), to allow it to move inwardly. The sensor/alarm may be powered by batteries that will include a low battery function to let the end user know when the batteries should be replaced.
By way of illustrative example, the adjustable privacy screen 100 may be used as follows. When the privacy screen 100 is intended to be used in a particular bathroom for a particular instance of patient toileting, the nurse caregiver may first rotate one or both of the telescoping tubes 110a, 110b about their axis of elongation, so as to uncouple/unlock the relative positions of the tubes 110a, 110b. The caregiver may then apply a coarse adjustment of the length of the support member 110 by translating one or both of the tubes 110a, 110b relative to each other until the overall combined length of the support member 110 and the semi-rigid brace members 120a, 120b is slightly greater than a distance between adjacent walls where the privacy screen 100 is to be installed, at which point one or both of the tubes 110a, 110 may be counter-rotated to lock the tubes into position and fix the left of the privacy screen 100. If desired, legs 160 may be attached to the support member 110. The privacy screen 100 may then be pressed into place between the walls, as shown in
In the event that the nurse/caregiver is momentarily distracted or otherwise inattentive, action by the patient in an attempt to pass by or remove the privacy screen will likely result in contact of the patient with a sensor 170 of the alarm system. In this event, the controller 178 will detect the patient's contact with the sensor 170, and the controller will responsively activate the signaling device 174 to cause an audible, visual or other alert for capturing the attention of the nurse/caregiver so that attention can be returned to the privacy screen 100 and patient, so that patient can be closely monitored and/or assisted, and a fall can be avoided. In the event that the nurse/caregiver does not return attention to the privacy screen 100 and patient, the patient's attempts to move and/or pass by the privacy screen 100 may in certain embodiments result in automated dislodging and/or collapsing of the privacy screen from its wedged position between the walls (e.g., by operation of the mechanism, under control of the controller 178, to cease to outwardly bias the inner support member 110b and/or at least one of the semi-rigid brace members 120a, 120b, to allow it to move inwardly, and to allow the patient to pass by freely, so as not to serve as a restraint to patient ambulation or egress from the bathroom.
In certain embodiments, the disposable drapes are provided with “odor guard” technology (e.g., chemical treatment to provide a fragrance and/or to neutralize odor) similar to that used with many conventional trash bags.
In certain embodiments, the privacy screen may include or communicate with appropriate hardware and/or software tracking how many times the sensor was activated, how many times support member collapse occurred, whether the sensor/alarm has been activated, and/or other pertinent details that will provide reporting useful for the caregiver, end user and/or supervisory team.
While there have been described herein the principles of the invention, it is to be understood by those skilled in the art that this description is made only by way of example and not as a limitation to the scope of the invention. Accordingly, it is intended by the appended claims, to cover all modifications of the invention which fall within the true spirit and scope of the invention.
This application claims the benefit of priority, under 35 U.S.C. § 119(e), of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/018,945, filed May 1, 2020, the entire disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63018945 | May 2020 | US |
