This description relates to a temporary barrier to shield an exposed feature on a person. Exposed features can include skin, nails, eyes, or other external parts of a living body and also abnormal or other conditions such as wounds, incisions, openings, vascular access sites, dressings, abrasions, infections, or treatment areas. Water, other liquids, vapors, gases, solids, and a wide variety of other environmental materials can alter, contaminate, infect, degrade, damage, or otherwise affect exposed features. In some cases, the exposed features can be said to be vulnerable exposed features in that they may undergo unwanted changes if they come into contact with particular environmental materials. In one example, a healing wound on a person's upper forearm can become infected or damaged if it comes into contact with water during a shower.
In general, in an aspect, a barrier includes a water impenetrable membrane having two sides. On one side of the membrane, a continuous strip of adhesive surrounds an adhesive-free central area. The entire extent of the continuous strip of adhesive bears one or more release strips. The membrane is resilient, flexible, and stretchable with an elongation at break in the range of 150% to 1000% (using test ASTM D412).
Implementations may include one or a combination of two or more of the following features. The membrane includes a polymeric material. The polymeric material includes a polyurethane. The polyurethane includes an aromatic polyether polyurethane. The membrane is transparent. The membrane has a thickness in the range of 2 mils to 4 mils inches. The adhesive has adhesive properties to seal the membrane to skin temporarily and to permit removable of the membrane without damaging the skin.
In general, in an aspect, a method includes attaching a barrier to skin of a person to form a seal between the barrier and the skin continuously along a strip that surrounds a vulnerable exposed feature of the person. The barrier shields the vulnerable exposed feature temporarily against exposure to a detrimental environmental material. The barrier stretches to accommodate a tension imparted to the barrier by motion of a part of the person in the vicinity of the vulnerable exposed feature, to prevent the tension from breaking the seal.
Implementations may include one or a combination of two or more of the following features. The forming of the seal between the barrier and the skin includes pressing an adhesive material against the skin. The seal can be broken and the barrier removed from the skin. The barrier contracts when the tension imparted to the barrier is released.
These and other aspects, features, and implementations (a) can be expressed as methods, apparatus, systems, components, program products, methods of doing business, means or steps for performing a function, and in other ways and (b) will become apparent from the following description, including the claims.
One example of a product used to protect a vulnerable exposed feature temporarily, for example, during a shower, is the HydroSeal™ product distributed by 2G Medical, LLC, of Clearwater, Fla.
As shown in
As shown in more detail in
The coating of adhesive 32 extends continuously without interruption around the perimeter along all four sides of the membrane 10 and has a constant width. A variety of adhesives could be used. The adhesive therefore surrounds a central area of the membrane that is free of adhesive. The two paper release tabs 12, 14 have essentially the same width as the width of the adhesive coating. The other two paper release tabs 16, 18 are wider than the width of the adhesive coating.
As a result, as illustrated in
Therefore, before the product is placed into use, it includes a flat flexible transparent rectangular plastic membrane 10 and four paper release strips temporarily attached to the adhesive coating along the four sides of the membrane 10 with the ends of release strips 16, 18 overlying the ends of release strips 12, 14.
As shown in
In some examples, the product can be attached to a person just before taking a shower in order to shield the exposed feature from water. Later, for example after the shower, the membrane can be peeled away from the skin and discarded. The adhesive is chosen to release from the skin without damaging the skin when the person peels the product off, after use.
As shown in
Improved Barrier
As shown in
If the force 56 is removed and the contour 54 tends to return to the original contour 52, the resilience of the material of the membrane 100 will enable it to tend to return to its original shape and dimensions.
As shown in
The material for the membrane 100 can be selected to impart any one or combinations of two or more of the following characteristics:
1. The membrane can be flexible enough to permit easy attachment to the person and easy removal. The flexibility can be sufficient to accommodate motion of the skin or other parts of the body in the vicinity of the exposed feature being shielded.
2. The membrane can be transparent to permit easy viewing of the condition of the exposed feature and the skin in the vicinity of the exposed feature. Transparency also makes it easy to confirm that the membrane has been applied in such a way that the surrounding seal provided by the adhesive against the skin is not touching the exposed feature and to make it easy to observe the exposed feature. The membrane can be left free of any printed information so as to provide an unobstructed view. In some implementations, color dies can be incorporated into the material of the membrane for various purposes including color coding the uses of or locations where the membrane can be applied most effectively.
3. The membrane can be formed of one or more distinct layers that can impart different characteristics to the membrane. For example, stretchability could be imparted to one layer and resilience to another layer so that in combination the two layers form a membrane that is both stretchable and resilient. In some implementations, a layer facing the skin can have properties that are suitable for touching the skin or the exposed feature. For example, that layer may be hypoallergenic and formed of a material that does not naturally adhere to the skin. Another layer facing the ambient environment may have qualities that enable it to shed environmental materials of certain kinds or qualities that enable it to attract or adhere to environmental materials. For example, this other layer could be oleophilic, oleophobic, hydrophobic, or hydrophilic among other things.
4. An important characteristic is that the membrane or the layers of which it is formed enable the membrane to be stretchable to accommodate adverse forces of the kind described above. A range of stretchabilities (e.g. elongation at break) can be used. The stretchability may be within the range of 150% to 1000%, or in particular within the range of 300% to 800%, or in a specific range from 500 to 700%. In some implementations, the stretchability could be approximately 660%.
5. In typical applications, the membrane or at least one of the layers of which it is formed will be impenetrable by (i.e. will shield against) particular environmental materials, such as water or oil. In some cases the membrane will be impenetrable by liquids, but will be penetrable by air or particular gases.
6. The membrane can be formed of a polymeric material, e.g., a polyurethane such as an aromatic polyether polyurethane (for example, the aromatic polyether polyurethane available commercially as product MT-2001 from American Polyfilm, Inc., in Branford, Conn.). Other materials may also be suitable including co-polyester films. The published properties of the MT-2001 product include the following, and films having properties within effective ranges above and below the indicated values would also be useful. Films that exhibit good resilience, good low temperature flexibility, excellent hydrolytic stability and resistance to attack by microorganisms, weldability or combinations of such qualities would be useful.
7. The membrane can be formed of a material that is non-irritating to the skin of the person and does not inherently adhere to the skin.
8. The membrane can include a hydrolytically stable material so that water does not significantly affect its useful properties.
9. The membrane can have a thickness that is between 2 mils and 4 mils, for example.
In general, in selecting an appropriate material for the membrane it can be useful to for the membrane to be not only stretchable but also resilient enough so that as the person using the product continues to move parts of her body in the vicinity of the product the membrane can stretch, contract, stretch, and contract repeatedly without breaking. In general, using a membrane that is relatively thinner will tend to enable a greater stretchability but the membrane should not be so thin that it can be easily broken by motion of the user's body.
The product can have a wide variety of configurations including the following:
1. The product can be rectangular, square, round, or any other simple geometric shape, and can be of a more complex shape suited to a particular part of the person where the exposed feature is located.
2. The product can have a variety of sizes and aspect ratios including 5″×5, 7″×7″, 9″×9″, 10″×12″, 12″×14″, or 7″×22″. The sizes and aspect ratios can be selected in particular to take advantage of the stretchability of the material of the membrane and to be suited to the part of the person where the exposed feature is located.
4. The stretchability of the product can be achieved not only by the stretchability of the material of the membrane itself, but also by other features associated with the material including gussets, folds, accordions, resilient supplemental devices and structures attached to the material, and in other ways.
5. The paper release strips can take on a wide variety of shapes and sizes and materials and be provided with tabs and other mechanisms to permit them to be easily removed from the membrane while at the same time permitting easy attachment of the membrane for the skin. The release strips can be made of materials other than paper, such as plastic or foil or combinations of them. Other arrangements of release strips can be provided to enable a person to reach under a partially attached membrane to remove remaining release strips. There can be more than one strip per side of the product and one strip can serve more than one side. Other approaches to forming the seal may also be possible without using release stress. The release strips can be any kind of sheet material that bears a release coating such as a silicone coating or any other coating that enables easy release from the adhesive.
Other implementations are within the scope of the following claims.
This application claims the benefit of and priority of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 62/660,302, filed on Apr. 20, 2018, the entire contents of which are incorporated here by reference.
Number | Date | Country | |
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62660302 | Apr 2018 | US |