Patent Application
20240285004
The present invention relates generally to gowns. More particularly, this invention pertains to medical gowns.
Medical gowns are commonly used in hospitals, clinics and other diagnostic facilities. Medical gowns are worn by both users and health care providers during medical procedures. Medical gowns serve a protective function by helping to prevent the transmission of germs and microbes.
One issue with prior art medical gowns is that they are time-consuming to put on (i.e., donning) and take off (i.e., doffing). Additionally, where the gown is sterile, it is difficult to don a gown without compromising the gown's exterior sterility. Removing a medical gown can also be difficult and may compromise the protective function thereof by transmitting germs to the user while removing the gown. It would be advantageous to have an improved medical gown. Certain prior art medial gowns have a vertical perforation along a rear side to assist with doffing the gown. The issue with these vertical perforations is that they openings and may compromise the protective function of the gown by allowing germ and/or fluid transmission therethrough.
The present disclosure provides a disposable medical gown that can easily be donned and doffed. The disposable medical gown features at least an upper section that is continuous along a rear side. A lower section of the rear side may feature abutting or overlapping fabric to define a slit in the back (e.g., defined between left and right flaps) that terminate into the continuous upper section. The disposable medical gown further includes a tear guide feature or weakened path defined along the upper section and extending downward from a neck hole of the upper section towards the slit of the lower section and optionally downward along the lower section when no slit is present. The tear guide feature may be created using ultrasonic sewing. Alternatively, the tear guide feature may be created using heat welding, traditional ultrasonic welding, radio-frequency (RF) welding, or the like. Ultrasonic welding is used in place of and is an improvement upon traditional perforations because the protective function of the gown is not compromised by the welding process while it is compromised by traditional perforations. The strip of material weakened by the welding process may more easily tear or rip as well as direct or guide the path of the tear when doffing the gown to further ensure the protective nature of the gown even during disrobing thereof.
In a particular embodiment, an exemplary medical gown comprises a neck opening and a tear guide extending downwardly from the neck opening along a rear side of the medical gown. The tear guide may extend between the neck opening and a nearest lower edge of the rear side of the medical gown. The nearest lower edge may comprise an upper end of a flap opening of the rear side of the gown. The flap opening may be defined between first and second flaps of the rear side of the medical gown. The tear guide may comprise a heat weld defined in the rear side of the medical gown. The tear guide may include a V-shaped portion extending downward from the neck opening and a straight portion extending downward form the V-shaped portion. The V-shaped portion may be coupled to the neck opening at first and second locations separated by 2 inches. The V-shaped portion may include a length of at least 4 inches extending downward from the neck opening.
In another embodiment, a method of doffing the medical gown configured to surround at least a portion of a user is disclosed herein. The method may include applying a perpendicular force in a forward direction to a front portion of the medical gown away from the user and ripping a rear portion of the medical gown along a weakened strip of material defined along a rear surface of the medical gown extending downward from a neck opening of the medical gown. The weakened strip of material may be created by heat welding a portion of a material of the medical gown. The ripped rear portion of the medical gown may occur along or proximate to the weakened strip of material. The method may further comprise removing the medical gown in the forward direction away from the user by separating the ripped rear portion around the user.
In another embodiment, a method of creating a medical gown configured for controlled doffing away from a user is disclosed herein. The method may comprise defining a weakened portion along a rear surface of the medical gown. The weakened portion may extend downward from a neck opening of the medical gown. The weakened portion may extend from the neck opening to a nearest lower edge defined along a portion of the rear surface of the medical gown. The nearest lower edge of the medical gown comprises an upper end of a flap opening of the rear side of the medical gown. The weakened portion may include a V-shaped portion extending downward from the neck opening and a straight portion extending downward form the V-shaped portion.
Reference will now be made in detail to embodiments of the present disclosure, one or more drawings of which are set forth herein. Each drawing is provided by way of explanation of the present disclosure and is not a limitation. In fact, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the teachings of the present disclosure without departing from the scope of the disclosure. For instance, features illustrated or described as part of one embodiment can be used with another embodiment to yield a still further embodiment.
Thus, it is intended that the present disclosure covers such modifications and variations as come within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents. Other objects, features, and aspects of the present disclosure are disclosed in, or are obvious from, the following detailed description. It is to be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art that the present discussion is a description of exemplary embodiments only and is not intended as limiting the broader aspects of the present disclosure.
Referring to
The medical gown 100 may include a top portion 110 and a bottom portion 112. The top portion 110 and the bottom portion 112 may be separate pieces coupled together. In other optional embodiments, the top portion 110 and the bottom portion 112 may be integrally formed, as shown by the material cut pattern 200 in
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The weakened portion 160 of the upper portion 110 may enable the medical gown 100 to be doffed (e.g., removed) by pulling the medical gown 100 forward away from the user's body, such that the medical gown 100 rips along the weakened portion 160.
The weakened portion 160 of the top portion 110 may be formed using a ultrasonic sewing to define at least one score line, which weakens the material. The weakened portion 160 created using ultrasonic sewing may be implemented in place of traditional perforations or for medical gowns having no perforations. Alternatively, the weakened portion 160 may be created using heat welding, traditional ultrasonic welding, radio-frequency (RF) welding, or the like. Each of the welding processes may advantageously preserves the integrity of the material for preventing the transmission of germs and microbes. Ultrasonic sewing or welding is an industrial process whereby high-frequency ultrasonic acoustic vibrations are locally applied to workpieces being held together under pressure to create a solid-state weld. Alternatively, the heat weld process is performed by applying heat at a specific temperature and at specific locations, for example, along at least the top portion 110 to create the weakened portion 160 (e.g., or any portion that is comprised of continuous material 142 along the rear side 104 of the medical gown 100). RF welding, also known as dielectric welding and high-frequency welding, is a welding process that utilizes high-frequency electric fields to induce heating and melting.
In certain optional embodiments, any part of the medical gown 100 may include a weakened portion 160 created using one or more of the welding processes. It should be appreciated by one of skill in the art that the shape and path of the weakened portion 160 may be altered to fit the needs of different medical gown designs such that the medical gown 100 may easily be doffed by pulling the medical gown 100 forward away from the user's body. For example, the path of the weakened portion 160 may be optimized to more easily rip upon pulling the medical gown 100 forward away from the user's body.
Referring to
The method 300 may further comprise removing 306 the medical gown 100 in the forward direction 322 away from the user by separating the ripped rear side 104 around the user.
Referring to
To facilitate the understanding of the embodiments described herein, a number of terms have been defined above. The terms defined herein have meanings as commonly understood by a person of ordinary skill in the areas relevant to the present invention. Terms such as “a,” “an,” and “the” are not intended to refer to only a singular entity, but rather include the general class of which a specific example may be used for illustration. The terminology herein is used to describe specific embodiments of the invention, but their usage does not delimit the invention, except as set forth in the claims. The phrase “in one embodiment,” as used herein does not necessarily refer to the same embodiment, although it may.
Conditional language used herein, such as, among others, “can,” “might,” “may,” “e.g.,” and the like, unless specifically stated otherwise, or otherwise understood within the context as used, is generally intended to convey that certain embodiments include, while other embodiments do not include, certain features, elements and/or states. Thus, such conditional language is not generally intended to imply that features, elements and/or states are in any way required for one or more embodiments or that one or more embodiments necessarily include logic for deciding, with or without author input or prompting, whether these features, elements and/or states are included or are to be performed in any particular embodiment.
The previous detailed description has been provided for the purposes of illustration and description. Thus, although there have been described particular embodiments of a new and useful “Medical Gown with Tear Guide Feature”, it is not intended that such references be construed as limitations upon the scope of this disclosure except as set forth in the following claims.
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/US2022/029263 | 5/13/2022 | WO |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63194078 | May 2021 | US |
