Patent Application
20170076826
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material, which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
Field of the Invention
The present application relates to an apron-like garment for protecting the wearer of said garment from harmful X-rays and other radiation.
Description of the Prior Art
Radiation shield aprons are known to be used by medical professionals who normally assume a sitting position while exposed to radiation. However, all known shield aprons commonly comprise essentially rectangular front panel which extends from the tops of the shoulders and base of the neck to at least about knee level of the wearer where side edges of the front panel are parallel to each other and where a bottom edge of the front panel is essentially perpendicular to the side edges of the front panel. The described general scheme of the existing protective aprons is associated with a serious flow of failing to adequately protect gonadal area of a wearer because the bottom edge of the existing protective aprons, due to its rigidness (as having a lead insert within) and due to its essential rectangular configuration tends to lay horizontally flat on the wearer's laps without bending over the wearer's laps sufficiently enough to protect the gonadal area of the wearer.
The present invention provides a protective garment comprising gonadal-abdominal protective section attached to a shield apron, the gonadal-abdominal protective section comprising front cover sheet, back cover sheet, one or more inner sheets of flexible radiation shielding material arranged between the front cover sheet and the back cover sheet, and an upper edge attached to a bottom portion of the shield apron.
The front cover sheet and the back cover sheet may comprise at least one of cotton, nylon, rubber, vinyl, plastics, or synthetic fibers. The flexible radiation shielding material can be comprised of heavy-metal metals such as lead, tin, antimony, tungsten, or bismuth. According to one embodiment, the front cover sheet or the back cover sheet may be coated with bismuth oxide.
The gonadal-abdominal protective section further comprises a lower edge. The upper edge and the lower edge of the gonadal-abdominal protective section comprises an upwardly radiating semi-circular shape. In one embodiment, the upper edge is straightened into a substantially horizontal edge. The upper edge may be attached to the bottom portion of the shield apron by at least one of stitching, buttons, zipper, clips, and hook and loop fasteners.
The invention is illustrated in the figures of the accompanying drawings which are meant to be exemplary and not limiting, in which like references are intended to refer to like or corresponding parts, and in which:
Subject matter will now be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, and which show, by way of illustration, exemplary embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. Subject matter may, however, be embodied in a variety of different forms and, therefore, covered or claimed subject matter is intended to be construed as not being limited to any example embodiments set forth herein; example embodiments are provided merely to be illustrative. It is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and structural changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. Likewise, a reasonably broad scope for claimed or covered subject matter is intended. The following detailed description is, therefore, not intended to be taken in a limiting sense.
Throughout the specification and claims, terms may have nuanced meanings suggested or implied in context beyond an explicitly stated meaning. Likewise, the phrase “in one embodiment” as used herein does not necessarily refer to the same embodiment and the phrase “in another embodiment” as used herein does not necessarily refer to a different embodiment. It is intended, for example, that claimed subject matter include combinations of exemplary embodiments in whole or in part.
In
The U-shape of the improved gonadal-abdominal protective section 100 comprises an upper edge 102, lower edge 104, and two straight side edges 106 and 108, where the upper edge 102 is substantially parallel to the lower edge 104 and where one straight side edge 106 is not parallel to one other straight side edge 108. As illustrated, upper edge 102 and lower edge 104 comprise an upwardly radiating semi-circular shape when in a relaxed or unstressed configuration. It is to be understood that a degree of radius of the upper edge 102 and of the lower edge 104 may be identical or it may differ. The metrics of radius of the upper edge 102 and of the lower edge 104 is non-limiting variable and may be changed depending on the measurements of the wearer.
The improved gonadal-abdominal protective section 100, as illustrated in
The foregoing description of the specific embodiments will so fully reveal the general nature of the invention that others can, by applying knowledge within the skill of the relevant art(s) (including the contents of the documents cited and incorporated by reference herein), readily modify and/or adapt for various applications such specific embodiments, without undue experimentation, without departing from the general concept of the present invention. Such adaptations and modifications are therefore intended to be within the meaning and range of equivalents of the disclosed embodiments, based on the teaching and guidance presented herein. It is to be understood that the phraseology or terminology herein is for the purpose of description and not of limitation, such that the terminology or phraseology of the present specification is to be interpreted by the skilled artisan in light of the teachings and guidance presented herein, in combination with the knowledge of one skilled in the relevant art(s).
This application claims the priority of U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/217,978, entitled “RADIATION SHIELD APRON WITH IMPROVED GONADAL PROTECTION,” filed on Sep. 14, 2015, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirely.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62217978 | Sep 2015 | US |
