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Home > Elder Care, Nursing and Geriatrics

Category: Elder Care, Nursing and Geriatrics

January 3, 2025

Which Bedpan do I use and why?

Having to help a sick family member with their daily toileting is an unpleasant and can be a hazardous duty. To minimize the work and effort required consider several aspect when deciding which bedpan to use:

How big is the patient or family member?

How strong are you to assist and move them?

What type of bed are they on?

Is the patient or family member on any anti-coagulants (blood thinners)?

The three types of bedpans to consider are: 1) the EZ Bedpan 2) the fracture bedpan 3) the pontoon bedpan

The EZ BEDPAN:

Pros: 4 large handles to enable easier placement and moving, from bottom or left / right side of the patient. Can be used lying down or sitting (it does not tilt), and can accommodate bigger persons. Its large surface area mimics a toilet seat, for comfort and to reduce injuries and skin bleeding when patients are on blood thinners. The large surface area of the top is also designed to prevent spillage. To further reduce spillage, the containment area can hold up 0.5 gallons (2L) of urine/feces. With a design to make disposable bag placement, and removal easier.

Cons: It is very large compared to other standard bedpans such as the Fracture or Pontoon bedpan.

The fracture bedpan:

Pros: is very easy to use from the inferior position on the patient. It can be placed with minimal assistance from the patient and pushed in under their bottom. It can also be placed from the side but it requires that the patient be moved onto their side.

Cons: If the patient is heavy, pushing them all the way to 90 degrees for placement is difficult. The surface area of the fracture bedpan is VERY small, and patients on blood thinners can experience bleeding of the skin when the bedpan is placed or after several minutes of lying on them. The containment area is also very small and shallow, often leading to spills and overflow, especially during removal from under the patient. This causes more work for the care giver.

The Pontoon Bedpan:

Pros: Relatively comfortable with a fairly large surface area, less likely to cause problems with patients on blood thinners. Familiar to most people.

Cons: Disposable begs have a tendency to come off during placement or removal from under the patient, spilling the urine and feces. The 90 degree walls tend to cause spillage during movement. Lack of handles. Prone to tilting. Difficult to place unless the patient assists.

October 8, 2024

EZ Bedpan Featured in Emergency Medicine News

We are very excited and happy to announce that our EZ Bedpan is featured in the October 2024 Emergency Medicine News. A description and photo of our EZ Bedpan is described in the Technology & Inventions section:

https://journals.lww.com/em-news/fulltext/2024/10000/technology___inventions.15.aspx

We appreciate the description and explanation of the features of our product. This allows readers to see how innovative and different our bedpan is. We are proud to share our scientifically developed design, and show it healthcare workers across the USA.

We are thrilled that Emergency Medicine News decided to share our products with its readers. We hope to help caregivers help their patients.

September 6, 2024

Love, responsibility and stress…

We take care of our elderly family members out of love and responsibility. But taking care of the elder can be very stressful and everyone experiences difficulty doing it at some point. The population of older adults is growing and many are receiving inadequate care. The proportion that need assistance with their activities of daily living (ADLs) and impaired activities of daily living (IADLs) is increasing disproportionally.

Studies have shown that up to 1 in 4 elderly have impaired ADLs/IADL with persons over 65. That number rises to 40% of men and 53% of women over 85. These impaired individuals require caregivers, who are up to 28.5 percent of the U.S. adult population. Roughly 65.7 million people, were providing unpaid care to an adult relative in 2009. That number has grown since then.

Taking care of the elderly causes stress. Up to 66.6% of unpaid caregivers for older adults reported at least one adverse mental or behavioral health symptom related to their role. Caregivers are at times overwhelmed.

Ensure that when you take care of someone, you take care of yourself. This can be as straight forward as improving the care environment to taking a day for yourself. The care environment can be improved through better home lighting, bathroom rails and house ramps. This improves elder self reliance and health, decreasing the burden of care. Using home health devices like the EZ Bedpan for bathroom needs can make taking care of basic necessities easier.

Taking a step back and a day off is not selfish, but sometimes necessary to be able to take care of others.

July 16, 2024

Comfortable Bedpan – for the patient and caregiver

The majority of bedpans on the market are not comfortable. The most common and cheapest bedpan used in hospitals is the fracture bedpan. It is a bedpan with the smallest surface area in contact with the patients skin. This can lead to serious injury. Needing to use a bedpan is not a familiar and comforting experience. Handling a bedpan, and human waste is not a comforting experience either. This discomfort adds to the difficulty of caring for patients requiring a bedpan.

Consider the patient's and your comfort when choosing a bedpan. While using a fracture bedpan is the cheapest option but it is uncomfortable to the patient and caregiver. Emptying and cleaning a fracture bedpan is a hassle. The same is true for the more comfortable pontoon bedpan. Which is difficult to place under a patient and has a tendency to tilt and spill. Cleaning up bedpan spills is unpleasant and a safety issue if the patient has an infectious disease.

For greatest patient and caregiver comfort, choose the EZ Bedpan. It offers a large surface area similar to a regular toilet, providing a familiar comfortable feeling. The EZ Bedpan is contoured for the patient's body and comfort. It can be used in the sitting, semi-sitting and laying positions.

The EZ Bedpan is also designed with the caregiver's comfort in mind. It provides 4 ergonomic handles for easy handling. The sloping walls make it easy and comfortable to place it under the patient. The removable top makes it easy to empty and clean if no insert is used. If an insert is used, the clean up consists of removing the insert and discarding it.

For the patient's and caregivers comfort, go easy, and choose the EZ Bedpan.

June 25, 2024

Survey

This is a copy of the survey we administered to healthcare professionals to study the problems they encountered with bedpans and bedpan use.

Our survey consisted of 5 demographic questions:  

1) Gender - Male / Female 

2) Age - 20 - 30, 31 - 40, 41 - 50, 51 - 60, 61 - 70

3) Profession - Technician, Emergency Medicine Technician (EMT), Certified Nurse Assistant

(CNA), Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN), Registered Nurse (RN), Physician Assistant (PA),

Medical Doctor (MD)

4) Years in Practice - 0 - 5, 6 - 10, 11 - 15, 16 - 20, 21 - 25+ 

5) Department - Emergency Department, Internal Medicine, Nursing Home,

Surgery

Using input from preliminary open-ended interviews with nursing staff, and our clinical

experience, we constructed a nine-question survey of the most common bedpan concerns. The

survey questions were: 

1) Have you or anyone you know had any issues placing a bedpan under the patient?

2) Have you or anyone you know had any issues with the bedpan contents spilling on

you?

3) Have you or anyone you know had any issues with the bedpan contents spilling on the

floor / bed?  

4) How long does it take to clean up bedpan spills? 

5) Have you or anyone you know had any issues with biohazard exposure from the

bedpan contents (i.e., urine or feces spilling on your skin or face or both)?

6) Have you or anyone you know had any issues with injuries from using the current

models of bedpans (e.g., difficulty placing bedpan under a patient resulting in back pain,

etc.)?

7) Have you or anyone you know had to take a break from working or time/days off work

or both because of injuries from using the current models of bedpans (e.g., difficulty

placing a bedpan under a heavy patient resulting in back pain etc.)?

8) Have you or anyone you know had any issues with patients being injured by the

current models of bedpans (e.g., bedpan scratching the patient when placed etc.)?

9) Have you or anyone you know had any issues with storing bedpans (not enough space

in storage, etc.)?

 

 

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