US3284816A

US3284816A - Supplemental bed sheet combination

Info

Publication number: US3284816A
Application number: US428388A
Authority: US
Inventors: Laubsch Anna Catherine
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 1965-01-27
Filing date: 1965-01-27
Publication date: 1966-11-15
Anticipated expiration: 1983-11-15

Description

Nam '35, 196% A. Q. LAUBSCH 3304,8515

SUPPLEMENTAL BED SHEET COMBINATION Filed Jan. 27, 196E INVENTOR ANNA CATHERINE LAUBSCH United States Patent 3,284,816 SUPPLEMENTAL BED SHEET COMBINATION Anna Catherine Laubsch, S. Orchard Road, 7

Vineland, NJ. Filed Jan. 27, 1965, Ser. No. 428,388 8 Claims. '(Cl. -81) The present invention relates to beds and bedding and more particularly to beds for patients in hospitals and the like where difficulties are frequently encountered in restoring a bed-ridden patient to a desired position in a bed from an undersired position into which the patient has slumped.

The invention has particular utility, and serves an especially urgent need, in connection with hospital beds of the type in which is included a transversely jointed or hinged spring or mattress support, by which the head portion or the foot portion of the mattress can be elevated or lowered to suit the comfort or the therapeutic needs of the patient. In such arrangements it often happens that a relatively helpless patient will slide or otherwise shift unduly toward the head or the foot of the bed, so that it becomes necessary for a nurse or orderly to move the patient lengthwise in the bed to a more desirable position. Shifting the patient is frequently impossible for one nurse or other attendant, and may be a difficult and awkward operation even when two attendants attempt to cooperate, one on each side of the bed.

The primary object of the present invention is to provide a bed adjunct that will greatly facilitate the patientshifting operation so that two nurses, orderlies or other attendants, each standing on one side of the bed, will be able to accomplish the shift with a minimum of difficulty and labor and without inconvenience or annoyance to the patient.

A related object is to provide a solution to the problem indicated and a means for accomplishing the foregoing objects by equipment that is of no consequential expense, which is unobtrusive and inconspicuous in the bed, which involves no discomfort to the patient, and which can be applied to and installed in any bed, of whatever specialized or other construction, and which can be used for its intended purpose by any attendants or indeed any other able bodied persons, however unskilled and inexperienced.

With the foregoing and other objects and advantages in view, a preferred embodiment of the invention, which has been reduced to actual practice and found entirely satisfactory, and hence is at present preferred, is shown in the accompanying drawing, in which:

FIGURE 1 is a side elevational view of a typical form of hospital bed showing the sheet element of the invention installed;

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the complete combination of parts comprising the invention;

FIG. 3 is a cross sectional view, taken on the line 33 of FIG. 2, through one of the stiff rod-like elements of the inventive combination;

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a bed equipped with the invention showing the manner in which the invention is used;

FIG. 5 is a diagrammatic view of the complete inventive combination; and

FIG. 6 is a detail end elevational view of a modified form of the loop or tube portion of the sheet element.

Generally and broadly speaking, the invention provides, for application to and installation on a hospital or analogous 'bed, the combination of a supplemental sheet, adapted to underlie the patient, or the torso, buttocks and thigh area of the patient, and certain adjuncts to the sheet 3,284,816 Patented Nov. 15, 1966 "ice by which the sheet and the superposed patient may be readily lifted by two persons standing on opposite sides of the bed sutliciently to shift the elevated sheet and patient further up toward the head of the bed, or down toward the foot of the bed, so as thereby to restore the patient to a desired position in the bed from which he may have moved.

In the embodiments of this inventive concept shown in the accompanying drawing, FIG. 1 shows a familiar type of hospital bed 1 in which the mattress 2 is mounted on a support 3, generally in the form of a woven spring mounted in a side and end framework which is jointed or otherwise arranged for hinging at one or two transverse lines so that the mattress can be disposed in angularly related sloping portions, with the head and torso of the patient elevated, or the legs or the legs and thighs raised, or in other combinations of angles, as is well known in the art.

FIG. 1 illustrates the difficulty encountered in the use of such a bed which the present invention is designed to overcome.

As there shown, the patient 4, who was originally disposed in the bed with his hips seated in the vertex 5 of the mattress, has slumped into an uncomfortable and undesirable position farther down toward the foot of the bed. This makes it desirable to shift the patient back toward the head of the bed, and this operation is in the present case performed by means now to be described.

FIG. 2 shows at 6 one form of the supplemental sheet and at 7 a pair of stiff rod-like wooden pole members. This comprises the three-part combination constituting the present invention.

The supplemental sheet 6 is a piece of woven fabric, which may be of the same material as is used in making conventional bed sheets, or it may be of heavier material, such as a light canvas or duck fabric. The supplemental sheet is substantially shorter than the length of the mattress on which it is to be used, e.g., for use on a seventyfive inch mattress the sheet might be some forty inches long, and is substantially wider than the width of the mattress, e.g., as much as twice as wide as the mattress. These are substantially the proportions shown in FIG. 4, as will be noted.

The sole distinctive feature of the sheet 6, apart from its rectangular shape and dimensional proportions to the mattress, is the pair of loops or tubes 7 which are integrated into the sheet. In the form of sheet shown in FIG. 2 each of these tubes is conveniently made by looping the material of the sheet and sewing a line of stitching as shown at 8 where the looped material extends from and returns to the plane of the sheet. Each loop may be of the order of one inch to one and one-half inch in diameter; the two tubes are formed lengthwise of the sheet and are disposed in parallelism, spaced apart a distance substantially equal to the width of the mattress, and each is inset equidistantly from the adjacent outer edge of the sheet.

The result of the foregoing construction is one form of the supplemental sheet component of the invention which will cooperate with the mattress in the manner shown in FIG. 4, where the sheet is seen overlying the mattress, about midway between the upper and lower ends of the mattress, and with each of the two tubes 7 lying substantially in the line of one of the mattress edges.

The other component of the inventive combination is the pair of members 9 best shown in FIG. 2. Each of these may be provided in the form of a pole of suitable hardwood, of the general nature, size and proportions of a conventional broomstick, of appropriate diameter for fitting easily into one of the tubes 7 and of a length such that preferably short portions will protrudefrom the ends of the tube, as shown in FIG. 4 where the rods are depicted installed in operative position in the tubes.

While not essential to the invention considered in its broader aspects, each of the rod members 9 is best grooved longitudinally as shown in the cross section depicted in FIG. 3, so as to have one side surface 10 which is convexly curved and constitutes the major portion of the rod surface and an opposite, intersecting side surface 11 which is concavely curved and forms a smaller part of the rod surface.

In use, the supplemental sheet is installed on the bed 1, preferably on top of the'usual mattress-covering sheet, about midway between the head and foot ends of the mattress as shown in FIG. 4, with the two tubes 7 aligned with the side edges of the mattress, and with the two side marginal zones 12, comprising the sheet area between each tube and the adjacent sheet edge, securely tucked beneath the mattress, in precisely the manner of the main mattress-covering bedsheet. The two rod members 9 are kept in some convenient location in the room. The patient lies in the bed, directly on the supplemental sheet, with only his head and shoulders projecting above the upper edge-of the supplemental sheet and only his legs extending below its lower edge.

If now the patient should shift his position, as by slumping down toward the lower end of the bed consequent upon the bed being operated (by means not shown in the drawing) to dispose the mattress in angularly related sections, or for any other reason, or by sliding up toward the head end of the bed, and it be desired to move him back to properly centered position in the bed, two attendants insert the rod members 9 into the tubes 7, one in each, and then, grasping the tubes, stiffened by the contained rod members as shown in FIG. 4, exert some lifting stress on the supplemental sheet and the supported patient sufficient to slide the sheet and patient upwardly or downwardly in the bed. This accomplished, the rod members arewithdrawn (in which operation the protruding ends will be found convenient), and the marginal portions 12 of the supplemental sheet are restored to tucked in position underlying the mattress.

It is believed to be manifest that the foregoing operation involves no great expenditure of energy, and requires no undue labor or skill, on the part of the attendants, inasmuch as the effort is equally divided between two of them and it is not necessary to raise the whole weight of the patient but is sufficient merely to pull up enough to enable the patient to be slid along the mattress. Moreover, it will be noted that the whole operation is accomplished with-out the necessity of pulling or pushing the patient or even of touching him in any manner. It will be observed also that the concave curvature, which is the preferred shape for one side surface of each of the rod members 9, improves the grip of each attendant on the sheet, and the length of rod in tube which can be held by each attendant distributes the stress of lifting and shifting over a considerable length and area of sheet, so that there is no concentration of strain that might otherwise tend to tear the sheet.

Other advantages will be evident to and appreciated by hospital attendants and patients and other skilled in the art to which the invention relates.

It is to be noted that in actual practice the loops or tubes 7 do not stand up vertically from the body of the sheet 6 in the ideal or theoretical position in which they are shown, the better to illustrate the invention, in FIG.

2, and in the schematic showing of FIG. 5. As the resultof laundering, and of the folding of the sheet for storage, the tubes are substantially collapsed and flattened down on the surface of the sheet. to shape the rods 9 with bluntly tapered ends as shown at 13 in FIG. 2 so as to facilitate entry into the flattened tube ends.

For this reason it is desirable This same blunt pointing of the rod member ends 13 Y is particularly useful in connection with the modified form of sheet tubes shown in FIG. 6. In this embodiment of the invention each of the tubes, here designated 14, is formed by folding the sheet material in two reverse folds back on itself and then fixing the folds by strong lines of stitching 15. This provides, between the fold line stitches, a double tube or loop, i.e., a pair of compartments 16, which necessarily lie flat on the sheet body. One of the rod members 9 can very readily be inserted into either of these compartments, by virtue of the tapered end 13, and the sheet can thus be lifted and moved as heretofore explained in the description of the other sheet embodiment.

It is to be understood that it is immaterial which of the two compartments 16 receives the rod member, since the grip of the attendants hands is on the sheet itself and the tension stress is transmitted directly to the area of the sheet that underlies the patient, so that no undue strain is imposed on the lines of stitching.

The invention has been explained in terms of the preferred embodiments illustrated in the drawing. It is to be understood that not all of the details there shown and hereinabove described are required to practice the invention, but that the inventive principles may be embodied in other and further modified forms, involving less than the full complement of details herein shown and described, and that all such other and further embodiments, to the extent that they incorporate the principles defined by the appended claims, are to be deemed within the scope and purview thereof;

I claim:

1. A supplemental sheet for the mattress of a patients bed adapted to facilitate longitudinal shifting of a patient lying on the bed comprising a piece of fabric material having a length substantially less than the length of the mattress and a width greater than the width of the mattress and having the material of the sheet looped and stitched to itself along parallel lengthwise lines spaced apart a distance substantially equal to the distance between the side edges of the mattress so as to form a pair of tubes integral with the sheet and outstanding therefrom and each tube being inset from the adjacent longitudinal edge of the sheet by a portion of sheet area wide enough to be tucked relatively securely beneath a side margin of the mattress with each tube being thereby positioned substantially along an edge of the mattress, in combination with a rigid rod-like member removably disposed in each of each tubes so as to stiffen the tubes for grasping by persons standing at the sides of the bed for lifting the tubes and elevating the sheet to lessen the load of a substantial portion of the length of the patient on the mattress and thereby facilitate shifting the patient longitudinally of the bed.

2. The combination claimed in claim 1, in which each of said rod-like members is a wooden pole.

3. The combination claimed in claim 1, in which each of said rod-like member-s is a wooden pole having a convexly curved surface of relatively large area and an intersecting concavely curved surface of relatively small area.

4. The combination claimed in claim 1, in which each of said rod-like members is a wooden pole longer than its enclosing tube and having a convexly curved surface of relatively large area and an intersecting concavely curved surface of relatively small area.

5. The combination claimed in claim 1, in which each of said rod-like members is a wooden pole longer than its enclosing tube and having bluntly pointed tapered ends adapted readily to enter the ends of said tubes. I

6. The combination claimed in claim 1, in which each of said tubes comprises a longitudinal band of the sheet material reversely folded back and forth on itself to form three plies secured in place by spaced parallel lines of stitching at the edges of the three plies and providing double compartments, each compartment being made up of one of the two outer plies and the single inner ply and each compartment constituting a tube adapted to receive one of the rod-like members.

7. The combination claimed in claim 6, in which the ends of the rod-like members are bluntly pointed so as to adapt them readily to enter either of the two compartments of either tube.

8. The combination claimed in claim 1, in which each 10 References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS FOREIGN PATENTS 11/ 1913 Great Britain. 10/ 1895 Switzerland.

FRANK B. SHERRY, Primary Examiner.

R. D. KRAUS, Assistant Examiner.

Claims

1. A SUPPLEMENTAL SHEET FOR THE MATTRESS OF A PATIENT''S BED ADAPTED TO FACILITATE LONGITUDINAL SHIFTING OF A PATIENT LYING ON THE BED COMPRISING A PIECE OF FABRIC MATERIAL HAVING A LENGTH SUBSTANTIALLY LESS THAN THE LENGTH OF THE MATTRESS AND A WIDTH GREATER THAN THE WIDTH OF THE MATTRESS AND HAVING THE MATERIAL OF THE SHEET LOOPED AND STITCHED TO ITSELF ALONG PARALLEL LENGTHWISE LINES SPACED APART A DISTANCE SUBSTANTIALLY EQUAL TO THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THE SIDE EDGES OF THE MATTRESS SO AS TO FORM A PAIR OF TUBES INTEGRAL WITH THE SHEET AND OUTSTANDING THEREFROM AND EACH TUBE BEING INSET FROM THE ADJACENT LONGITUDINAL EDGE OF THE SHEET BY A PORTION OF SHEET AREA WIDE ENOUGH TO BE TUCKED RELATIVELY SECURELY BENEATH A SIDE MARGIN OF THE MATTRESS WITH EACH TUBE BEING THEREBY POSITIONED SUBSTANTIALLY ALONG AN EDGE OF THE MATTRESS, IN COMBINATION WITH A RIGID ROD-LIKE MEMBER REMOVABLY DISPOSED IN EACH OF EACH TUBES SO AS TO STIFFEN THE TUBES FOR GRASPING BY PERSONS STANDING AT THE SIDES OF THE BED FOR LIFTING THE TUBES AND ELEVATING THE SHEET TO LESSEN THE LOAD OF A SUBSTANTIAL PORTION OF THE LENGTH OF THE PATIENT ON THE MATRESS AND THEREBY FACILITATE SHIFTING THE PATIENT LONGITUDINALLY OF THE BED.