| Brief with pockets for thermal inserts -> Monitor Keywords |
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Brief with pockets for thermal insertsRelated Patent Categories: Apparel, Head Coverings, Skirts, UnderwearBrief with pockets for thermal inserts description/claimsThe Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20060101558, Brief with pockets for thermal inserts. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0001] This invention relates to a disposable brief for use with males or females and may provide hot or cold packs to alleviate pain or to assist in healing. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] In hospitals or other places where there are patients who need thermal applications of cold or heat in or about the crotch, buttocks, lower back or lower abdomen, particularly for alleviating pain, to reduce swelling, or to increase circulation of blood at a heated area, the application of heat or cold to a particular area is often time consuming and relatively difficult. For example, in some applications, it is necessary to apply a cold pack, six to ten times daily and with some difficulty particularly if the cold or hot pack is being applied behind a patient who is lying on his/her back for most of the day. The patient may turn while sleeping or be required to walk two or three times daily; and it is desirable to hold in position a thermal insert while the patient is ambulatory without the thermal insert shifting such where it is no longer effective or where it shifts into a position at which it becomes uncomfortable. For instance, a postpartum patient may have a cold pack applied at the crotch to reduce the swelling and to ease the pain. A typical cold pack lasts a short time, e.g., 45 minutes or so and then it needs to be replaced. Postpartum women often experience lower back pain as well as pain at the crotch due to trauma experienced during the birthing process. Often it is desirable that postpartum women also be ambulatory at times. In addition to being applied to women, there is often a need for men who have had hernia; prostate operations or the like to have a cold pack insert positioned at the front crotch area. After other surgeries such as for hemorrhoids, tail bone operations, a hot or cold pack may be applied to a position on the rear side of the patient. [0003] A typical practice of applying cold packs in hospitals today is to select an appropriate sized panty and tape a cold or hot pack insert in a general location and then to pull the panty over the patient's body along the legs by threading the legs through the openings in the panty. This shiffing of the legs and pulling of the panty may be painful for the patient, particularly where the patient is experiencing a lot of pain and leg movement acerbates this pain. Not only is it time consuming to pull such panties over the legs but it is also time consuming in that the sense that one or more nurses or medical personnel may be needed to apply the panty, particularly for very large or very heavy patients. Moreover, it is difficult to reposition the insert and to retape it in position particularly where the insert is located underneath the patient such as at the buttocks, anal area or lower back. Thus, it will be seen that it is usually difficult to insert a thermal insert and to remove a thermal insert without causing some pain to the patient or without a considerable effort on the part of the person doing the insert changing. [0004] An inventory problem may occur in the hospitals where various different sizes of people having different sizes of waists, different sizes of hips and different leg sizes require a large inventory of sizes and/or shapes of panties for its patients. Moreover, separate kinds of panties are often inventoried exclusively for women and for men. That is, these panties are not universal for both men and women as is desirable to reduce the inventory. Also, there is a need for a universal brief for both women and men and which can be used to position cold or hot packs at various places such as the lower abdomen, the front crotch portion, the rear anal portion, or the lower part of the back near the tail bone. Additionally, there is a need for an improved brief that facilitates the ability of the person to easily change thermal inserts, preferably with one hand for patients lying in bed. There is also a need to be able to reduce inventory of panties used to hold such thermal inserts and to hold the thermal inserts in position with patient movement. [0005] While institutional use of the disposable brief is described herein, there are needs and uses that do not involve being a patient or bedridden, as will be discussed and disclosed hereinafter, that could use a disposable brief. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION [0006] In accordance with an illustrated embodiment, there is provided an inexpensive, disposable brief having pockets for receiving a thermal insert for the application of either cold or hot to the patient at a particular location. Preferably this is achieved at a low cost manner by a disposable brief which is made of low cost air permeable material having one or more pockets located on the exterior of the brief for receiving a thermal insert which are typically either a cold pack or hot pack. In some instances, the cold or hot pack will be a pocket of a chemical material that is manipulated to cause it to generate cold and thereby heat extraction or to generate heat for transfer to the patient. [0007] In accordance with another aspect of the invention the thermal application brief is formed to be easily applied to a prone person because the brief has no leg portions through which a persons legs would have to be threaded which is particularly difficult for patients who have recently undergone surgery and experience more pain when moving the legs. As stated above, it is difficult and time consuming for medical personnel to lift the legs and thread them through the respective leg openings in the brief. In accordance with the preferred embodiment, a rear portion of a flat, diaper-like brief is slid underneath the buttocks of the reclining person without having to thread the same over the legs. A crotch portion of the brief is pulled between the legs of the person and then the front portion is laid over the front of the crotch and over the lower abdomen of the person. Then portions of the brief, such as, for example, straps on the brief are brought about the patient's hips or waist and fastened to secure the brief to the patient. Typically, an adjustable size for the brief is afforded by the straps, for example, the straps may be adjustable to hip sizes between 20 to over 60 inches. Thus, the inventory may be reduced very substantially by having very easy size adjustable brief which are usually fitted around the hips of the patient and which preferably can be applied to either women or men. [0008] The preferred briefs provide an easy slipping in and slipping out by one person of a thermal pad into the insert pocket of the brief. In the preferred embodiment the outer panel of the pocket has a two level opening into the pocket. That is, the pocket is formed with an outer, lower panel edge which to allows the fingers of a person's hand palming an ice pack or the hot pack to slide down along the inner panel for the pocket and to push the outer pocket panel away from an inner panel of the brief and continue to slide the ice pack into the pocket. The thermal insert may be removed by shifting the outer pocket and edge with the fingers to secure it from the inner pocket panel and slipping a hand into the pocket to grasp the thermal insert and pull it out of the pocket. This is particularly important where there is a frequent change, for example, insertion at 30 to 45 minute intervals of a cold pack or a hot pack for 6 to 10 times per day. The ability for one person to do it fairly easily with the thermal pack being positioned relatively, precisely and held in position even when the patient gets up or when the patient moves about is a decided advantage to the patient, the care giver and the institution, if the patient is disposed in an institution. [0009] In the preferred embodiment the brief is made inexpensively and is made with a very open mesh fabric that is air permeable and breathable. For instance, an inexpensive mesh cloth fabric having a relatively open weave to provide good heat transfer may be used. Also, non-woven and non-cloth fabrics may be used rather than a cloth fabric. [0010] In accordance with an important aspect, it is preferred that the brief is made to be reversible or more universal in that a front panel might be shifted to the back or the rear side of the patient to become a rear panel and a rear panel may be shifted from the rear to become the front panel for the patient so that the pockets on the respective front and the back of the briefs may be also reversed. More specifically in the preferred embodiment illustrated herein, there is a lower crotch pocket on the front panel and when shifted from adjacent the front of the crotch to the rear of the crotch be at an anal area. On the other hand, an upper rear exterior pocket for being positioned adjacent the tail bone of a patient which when reversed will be up adjacent the lower abdomen of a patient so as to receive a ice or cold pack wherever it is needed at a location near the abdomen. Additionally, the brief can be shifted sideways on the patent to pull one side up or down and thereby shift the pocket to one side or to the other side slightly to position the pocket and its insert to one side or the other relative to a center line through the body of the patient. [0011] In accordance with another embodiment, the disposable, thermal insert brief may be provided with three pockets, viz. a front upper pocket, a crotch pocket and a rear pocket. In a still further embodiment, the disposable, thermal insert brief may be provided with an absorbent pad which may be placed at the inner side of the crotch position and secured in position, preferably by some fastening devices such as, for example, stretchable straps on the interior side of the panty. Of course, the pad may be adhered in position by adhesives or made integral with the thermal insert brief. Thus, the brief with an absorbent pad may be used by women to absorb fluids and to receive a hot pack to apply heat to try to reduce accompanying cramping pain. The entire brief and pad are inexpensive and may be discarded after use, which will be preferred by many women to avoid having to handle and wash a soiled panty. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS [0012] FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a disposable brief having pockets or the like receiving a thermal insert and constructed in accordance with one embodiment; [0013] FIG. 2 is a diagrammatic view of a thermal pack for insertion into a front pocket of a disposable brief construed in accordance with another embodiment of the invention; [0014] FIG. 3 is a diagrammatic view of insertion of a thermal pack into a rear pocket of a disposable brief; [0015] FIG. 4 is a fragmentary view of another embodiment having an absorbent pad inserted into the crotch portion of the disposable brief and held in position by elastic straps; [0016] FIG. 5 is a plan view of a disposable brief with a crotch pocket for receiving a disposable sanitary pad; and [0017] FIG. 6 illustrates a disposable brief with an integral pad with both the pad and the brief being disposed of after a single usage thereof. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS [0018] In accordance with the illustrated embodiment, a disposable thermal brief 10 is formed to be applied to a patient to receive and to position a thermal insert 12 at a location to medically benefit the patient. The thermal insert is typically a heat producing insert or a cold producing insert to withdraw heat from or to apply heat to the patient at one or more locations on the patient's crotch, buttocks, lower back, e.g., at the tail bone or lower abdomen. Herein, the brief is applied to the patient lying face up on a bed by sliding a rear portion or panel 14 of the brief under the patient's buttocks by slightly raising the patient's buttock from the bed. Then, a crotch portion 16 of the brief and a front panel or portion 18 of the brief is threaded between the patient's leg and the front panel is positioned upwardly of the crotch. Then, a waist or hip encircling portion 20 is positioned about the patient's hips or sides to be secured in front at the lower abdomen of the patient to retain the insert in position. [0019] Herein, the encircling portion is preferably one or more straps 20a, 20b that extend between the rear panel 14 and the front panel 18 and are preferably adjustable in length so that one size of brief may fit many patient's of different waist or hip sizes, e.g., 20 to 60 inches in size. The preferred brief also have very large leg openings 22 that allow the diaper or brief to be secured about the people having different sizes hips or legs. This is contrast to a typical prior panty which has fixed leg sized openings and fixed hip receiving panty portions. A problem with such a prior art panty is that when being applied to a patient, the leg openings in the panty must be slipped over the feet and ankles of the user and then pulled upwardly about the legs to bring a panty crotch portion into the position at the crotch and to bring the rear panel portion to the buttocks. If a patient has had recent surgery or has recently given birth to a child, there may be a lot of pain involved and difficulty in doing such positioning of a panty into place if the panty containing thermal packets taped therein. Continue reading about Brief with pockets for thermal inserts... Full patent description for Brief with pockets for thermal inserts Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims Click on the above for other options relating to this Brief with pockets for thermal inserts patent application. ###  How KEYWORD MONITOR works... a FREE service from FreshPatents1. Sign up (takes 30 seconds). 2. Fill in the keywords to be monitored. 3. Each week you receive an email with patent applications related to your keywords. Start now! - Receive info on patent apps like Brief with pockets for thermal inserts or other areas of interest. ### Previous Patent Application: Supplied air helmet having face seal with differentiated permeability Next Patent Application: Custom-fitted helmet and method of making the same Industry Class: Apparel ### FreshPatents.com Support Thank you for viewing the Brief with pockets for thermal inserts patent info. IP-related news and info Results in 0.13548 seconds Other interesting Feshpatents.com categories: Canon USA , Celera Genomics , Cephalon, Inc. , Cingular Wireless , Clorox , Colgate-Palmolive , Corning , Cymer , 174 |
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