Patent Application
20090054844
1. Technical Field
This disclosure relates to garments or wraps intended to support and hold surgical lines or tubing implanted in a human or animal body. Such lines can include any intravenous line, catheter, feeding tube or drainage tube.
2. Background Art
In patients who have surgically implanted medical tubing or lines (the terms are used interchangeably in this disclosure) in their upper chest or upper abdominal area, the medical tubing is usually left to hang straight down off a patient's chest area. This allows easy access for the patient to pull it or tamper with it, so that the tubing may be completely removed from the patient's body. The result can be life-threatening due to hemorrhage and increased risk of infection. This in turn leads to emergency fixes by a team of medical personnel, and can ultimately lead to surgery. Allowed to hang freely, the tubing also becomes kinked and obstructed. This obstruction can interrupt the flow of treatment medications or solutions being administered via an external pump device. The external pump device emits an alarm requiring medical caregivers to solve the obstructions. Not only does this interrupt treatment, but also requires time of medical caregivers. The weight of the free-hanging tubing adds tension stress to the insertion site that is sutured (stitched) into place. This creates increased risk for skin irritation and discomfort at the insertion site. Multiple caretakers changing dressings frequently can lead to increased risk of infection and increased risk of mis-identification of differentiated ports. Ports and safety clamps on the tubing cause pressure to the skin and underlying tissues if not padded.
Past means of avoiding this situation, led to more tape on the patient, or a netted gauze material shaped into a “tube top.” Neither approach worked, as tape did not provide freedom of movement, and is irritating to the skin. Also, netted gauze shaped into a “tube top” had to be fashioned daily; the tube top did not stay in place on the patient, and the medical tubing had to be pulled through the very tiny net hole. The netted gauze still had to use tape to stay in place. Finally, access to the tubing was restricted requiring more time for care.
What is needed is a way to overcome the foregoing difficulties and maintain patency of tubing by preventing kinking that blocks the flow of medications or solutions to the patient. At the same time, it is highly desirable to prevent pressure of the tubing, ports and clamps on the tissues of the skin. This pressure is uncomfortable and carries the risk of breakdown injury to the skin and underlying tissues.
The wrap has fingers (185) on one end, where the fingers (185) define an opening (210) for passage of lines to the patient. The fingers have hook-and-loop fasteners (170), which hook-and-loop fasteners (170) engage corresponding hook-and-loop fasteners (180) on the opposite side of wrap (110). In the preferred embodiment, any hook-and-loop fasteners that could contact the skin of the patient are arranged so that the soft loop side of the hook-and-loop fasteners is presented. The shoulder straps (160) connected to the wrap (110) have hook-and-loop fasteners (220) that engage an hook-and-loop fastener area (230) on the wrap, as shown in
The pouch (120) for holding ports from an incoming line also is preferably closed by hook-and-loop fasteners (150, 155).
As shown in the figures, one side of the wrap (110) fits comfortably over opening (210) and attaches with hook-and-loop fasteners (170, 180) to the other end of the wrap (110). Medical tubing, especially surgically-implanted tubing, can then be wrapped around to the back of the patient's body, passing through the hub-holding pouch (140). Then, the tubing and clamps can be threaded through and fastened into the preferably color-coded line holders (130). The line holders (130), being padded, cushion the clamps from the patient and reduce the risk a clamp could become unclamped and allow air into a line. Ports connected to the lines are supported by the pouch (120), thus also cushioning the ports from the patient. As shown in
It should be noted that other means for fastening the garment (100) to a patient, and for fastening tubing and ports to the garment (100) could be used, such as metal or plastic hooks engaging clasps or loops, zippers, or buttons.
This application claims the priority of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/957,746, titled “Medical Garment Wrap,” filed Aug. 24, 2007, which application is incorporated by reference into the present application.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60957746 | Aug 2007 | US |
