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1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to disposable single use elastomeric gloves for protection of infusion devices inserted in human hands and arms against water. The purpose of said gloves is to keep said hands and arms dry while patients wash or take baths or showers.
2. Description of Prior Art
The idea of protecting a human limb against water has been around for a long time, and a plurality of contraptions serving this purpose have been invented. The common goal of all such devices is to alleviate a process of washing for patients, who for any reasons should keep their limbs dry. Most noticeably such necessity might occur when a person has a bandage or a cast over an injury or when an intravenous infusion device is inserted in a person's limb.
The majority of such devices present various sheaths and sleeves, which can be pulled on human limbs and closed tightly or sealed around said limbs at open ends. However quite different ideas has also been patented, among which the most notable is one described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,336,204. This invention suggests that the IV-insertion site be covered locally by a rigid plastic cap, providing both protection against water and accidental dislodging. With all its ingenuity, however, this contraption appears to be labor intensive in installation and too expensive to serve as a disposable single use article.
Plastic (PVC, polyethylene, etc.) sheaths and sleeves with sealing means, comprising fasteners, bandages, sealant layers and straps, are plentiful and some of such devices have found their way to the present U.S. market. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,911,151; 4,562,834; 5,605,534; 5,643,183; 6,210,352; 5,720,713; 5,395,302; 5,592,953 present incomplete list of related devices. Among these devices only one, exposed by U.S. Pat. No. 4,911,151, is explicitly defined as disposable. These contraptions, while providing good protection for IV-lines and other sites on human limbs intended to be kept dry, are rather complex in use and overly expensive in production, which prevents them from being commonly used.
The most noteworthy inventions in the field of protection of IV-sites and injuries of human limbs are thin walled elastomeric sheathes and sleeves, which allow very inexpensive production by means of dip molding technology, thereby having the advantage of being single use articles. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,728,052; 6,276,364; 4,346,699 along with some others constitute this group. The invention of U.S. Pat. No. 6,276,364 is of much interest, as it combines good protection against water with ease of donning and potential disposability. However, this device demands technology, which hitherto has not been well developed, wherefore it cannot be produced in quantities. U.S. Pat. No. 4,346,699 probably deserves the most interest. This invention is simple and inexpensive in production and easy in use. Its only deficiency is the lack of comfort for a patient, for this device does not allow use of fingers, when it is donned on a human hand.
The last group of related inventions, reflected by U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,884,300; 4,845,780, contains elastomeric gloves with means of securing cuffs of said gloves around wrists or arms. These devices, however, cannot be used for keeping dry IV-sites on human hands and arms for the following reasons: (1) the prescribed methods of securing cuffs, while serving the purpose of holding gloves in place, do not provide waterproof seals; (2) gloves in question do not provide any room or space for IV-catheters with infusion plugs and means or securing said catheters; (3) they do not provide for the case when an IV-line is attached to a mid or upper forearm.
The protective gloves proposed herein combine all the advantages of devices existing heretofore, while being free of aforementioned deficiencies. The gloves of this invention (1) render waterproof seals around arms on which they are donned; (2) provide ample space for IV-catheters along with infusion plugs and fixtures; (3) furnish sufficient comfort and ease of use of hands; (4) they are easy to don and strip off without external help; (5) several versions of gloves with overlapping features, proposed herein, jointly offer protection for various cases of IV-catheter insertion—in hands and in forearms; (6) manufacturing of proposed protective gloves employs standard dip molding technology, whereby they are inexpensive to produce and therefore disposable.
The present invention introduces disposable gloves for protecting against water intravenous catheters in human hands and forearms.
Upon hospital admission almost every patient has an intravenous catheter (AKA IV-catheter) inserted in his or her forearm or a back of a hand. Normally an IV-catheter is preserved until the patient gets discharged regardless of whether or not an actual infusion line is connected to an infusion plug of the catheter. This IV-site presents a serious hindrance in the way of washing or showering the patient. Should it get wet in the process it may become a gate for waterborne infection. Untimely replacing the catheter constitutes extra inconvenience for a patient and puts additional workload upon IV nurses, hence increasing health care expenses of hospitals. For obvious reasons situation becomes even more aggravating for home care patients with permanent IV-sites. Protective gloves presented herein are intended to solve this problem.
This invention comprises several types of disposable elastomeric protective gloves which all are characterized by the following features:
For protecting a catheter inserted in a back of a hand the IV-catheter protective glove may be produced with a short sleeve and a substantial bubble-like bulge on a back of a hand. For an IV-line attached to a forearm the glove must be furnished with a long loose sleeve, covering at least most of forearm's length. This sleeve shall fit loosely enough to provide sufficient room between its wall and a forearm in order to accommodate a catheter with its auxiliaries.
While this invention may be satisfied by a plurality of embodiments, the drawings and the description herein elaborate on the details of preferred embodiments of Watertight Protective Elastomeric Gloves (hereinafter IV-Gloves). However the present disclosure must be considered as exemplary of the principles of the present invention and is not intended to limit this invention to the embodiments illustrated.
As it is implied by the name the main purpose of IV-Gloves is to provide watertight shielding of intravenous catheters in human hands and forearm, however their very important auxiliary application is keeping dry and protecting from infection wounds and bandages.
Every type and embodiment of IV-Glove consists of a thin-walled hollow body (10) with 5 finger receptacles (12), a cylindrical or slightly conical cuff (20) and a sleeve (16 and 18) connecting the latter to the former. Depending on the given embodiment, corresponding to the exact intended application of the glove, this sleeve may be as short as would only suffice to constitute a smooth transition from the body of the glove to its cuff (
The circumference of the cuff is substantially less than of corresponding part of an arm, on which said cuff is donned, wherefore said arm is tightly embraced by the cuff. The proximal end of the cuff, which is an open tubular cuff, may be finished with a rolled bead (22). With the circumference of the cuff substantially less than that of the circumference of the corresponding part of the forearm, the arm is tightly embraced by the cuff to form a watertight seal.
IV-Glove shall be produced of elastic and resilient material such as natural rubber latex or synthetic polymer with similar qualities. The gloves, disposable gloves come in varies sizes, so that the glove correlates with size of the hand and forearm of the user. Resilience of material, combined with tight enwrapping of the arm by the cuff, secures a waterproof seal between the cuff and the arm, effectively keeping the hand with the arm inside the glove dry, while the glove is subjected to water.
IV-Glove is made substantially loose around possible IV-catheter insertion sites, providing space, large enough to accommodate IV-catheters along with infusion plugs and means of affixing said plugs and catheters to skin. IV-gloves must conform to the requirements imposed by placing of intravenous lines, which are predominantly connected to either backs of hands or forearms. Types of IV-Gloves vary in shapes according to their intended usage.
For IV-lines connected to backs of hands the glove shown in
In cases of insertion catheters in forearms gloves shown in
Long Glove presented in
This application claims the benefit of Provisional Patent Application No. 60/424,438, filed Nov. 7, 2002, titled “Water Tight Protective Elastomeric Gloves”.
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Number | Date | Country | |
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60424438 | Nov 2002 | US |