Beds – With means for relocating an invalid – With a hoisting – lifting – elevating – or raising device
Patent
1992-10-06
1994-02-08
Trettel, Michael F.
Beds
With means for relocating an invalid
With a hoisting, lifting, elevating, or raising device
5 861, 5 871, A61G 710
Patent
active
052839176
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention concerns an appliance for lifting or positioning a sick or handicapped person (patient), comprising a base, a multiplicity of supporting elements for the body of the patient and a positioning device connecting the base to the supporting elements.
In the course of care and treatment of patients substantially unable to move, it is often difficult to bring them into whatever may be the position required with as little pain as possible. This applies particularly to lifting the patient or moving her/him from one bed to another to re-make the bed or when measures of personal hygiene are required Another example is, positioning the whole patient or certain parts of the body for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes including surgery.
Particularly for the first-mentioned application, a multitude of different appliances have already been proposed. The base can usually be moved along the floor on wheels; the support elements can be pushed under the body of the patient. Base and support elements are connected by mechanical and/or hydraulic and/or electrical means collectively designated as positioning equipment or lifting equipment, insofar as it is a matter of lifting the patient.
Examples of such appliances are described in German Patent Specification 836 236 and in DE-Ul-89 06 752. These appliances are of complicated design. They are also awkward to use because the support elements in the form of straps or slats are difficult to position and have to be fixed individually. Usually the appliances comprise a large number of parts difficult to keep clean.
Also already proposed a long time ago have been supporting arms which can be pivoted about an axis roughly parallel to the longitudinal axis of the patient. In U.S. Pat. No. 2,261,297 (issued in 1941) the supporting arms can be slid around two separate longitudinal beams of a frame movable over a bed. Each of the arms comprises a suspending shank and a support member for the body of the patient. These two parts can be rotated in relation to each other and are lockable in two positions, namely at right angles to one another (to form the relatively-angled operating position) and extended. This is achieved by means of a pin engaging in a drilled hole.
In DE-A-1 541 340 an appliance is described whose object is above all to reduce the exposure to radiation of the nursing staff when dealing with a patient receiving radiation treatment. It has several rigid supporting arms fastened in swivelling fashion via a swivel hinge to a cantilever beam arranged over the longitudinal axis of the patient.
Starting from this basis, the purpose of the invention is to make available an appliance for positioning (in particular, for lifting) patients which is easy to use and comfortable for the patient.
In the case of an appliance of the type mentioned initially this purpose is achieved by having support elements fastened to multi-hinge supporting arms each with at least three hinges, of which at least two are continuously lockable, i.e. can be locked in any desired position within the respective swivelling range.
An important basis of the invention is the recognition that simpler operation of the appliance by the nursing staff, but above all gentler and less unpleasant lifting or positioning of the patient, can be achieved if the supporting arms are movable in such a way that they can be inserted under the patient either horizontally or at various different angles to the horizontal as required by the patient's position, the level of the insertion-movement (relative to the top surface of the bed) also being adjustable to match the position in which the patient is lying. This makes it possible to bring each of the support elements (which themselves may be variously shaped to match their specific purpose) into the optimum position with little effort and gently. In the case of the currently known designs, which merely permit pivoting of the supporting arms about a fixed axis, this is not ensured. The infinitely variable locking facility allows each support element to be fixed in th
REFERENCES:
patent: 2213204 (1940-06-01), Nicolai
patent: 2261297 (1941-11-01), Sieb
patent: 2975434 (1961-03-01), Butler et al.
patent: 3131404 (1964-05-01), Bowers et al.
patent: 3882555 (1975-05-01), Edlund
patent: 4837874 (1989-06-01), Giercarz et al.
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