Patient gown

Abstract

A patient gown includes a garment having an access opening overlying a portion of a patient's body when worn; and a drape attached to the garment for movement between a covered position in which the drape covers the access opening to conceal, and maintain patient privacy of, the portion of the patient's body, and an exposed position in which the drape is uncovered from the access opening to expose, and enable access to, the portion of the patient's body. The patient's modesty is maintained while at the same time allowing unfettered access by a health care professional to different portions of the patient's body. The gown is medical personnel convenient especially for medical procedures, while retaining wanted coverage of the patient so as to avoid embarrassment due to unavoidable, undesired exposure of the body of the patient.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention generally relates to gowns and like wearing apparel for wear by a medical patient in a doctor's office or hospital while going through one or more various medical diagnostic procedures involving examination by health care professionals. [0003] 2. Description of the Related Art [0004] Patients in hospitals, clinics, or doctors' offices are typically provided with gowns in an effort to help patients maintain their privacy and modesty during examinations. A much used and well known gown has a split-open, dual rear section back, a solid-closed front, and dual short sleeves, made of a single sheet of cloth material. The gown is secured by drawing together one or more vertically spaced-apart ties that extend from opposite edges of the two rear sections of the split-open back, and by tying the drawn ties into bows. [0005] However, such tie-bow coupling only pulls the opposite edges of the two rear sec...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0007] Accordingly, it is a general object of this invention to provide an easy to manufacture, patient gown, which provides both ready access to portions of a patient's body to health care professionals and maintains the patient's modesty, vanity and comfort.

[0015] The gown may additionally be provided with another access opening overlying a different portion of the patient's body when worn, and another drape attached to the garment for movement between another covered position in which the other drape covers the other access opening to conceal, and maintain patient privacy of, said different portion of the patient's body, and another exposed position in which the other drape is uncovered from the other access opening to expose, and enable access to, said different portion of the patient's body.

[0016] In all of the above-described embodiments, the patient's modesty is maintained while at the same time allowing unfettered access by a health care professional to different portions of the patient's body. The gown is medical personnel convenient especially for medical procedures, while retaining wanted coverage of the patient so as to avoid embarrassment due to unavoidable, undesired exposure of the body of the patient.

Problems solved by technology

However, such tie-bow coupling only pulls the opposite edges of the two rear sections together in the regions of the ties.

Many patients, for the sake of vanity, warmth and modesty, must manually hold the opposite edges of the two rear sections together to close these open gaps, thereby making the experience of wearing these gowns not only embarrassing, but also uncomfortable.

Yet, such a split-open back gown does allow health care professionals ready access to the rear of a patient's body for performing various tests and examination procedures, e.g., a colonoscopy, but again at the cost of compromising patient modesty and comfort.

Also, the solid-front gown is not well suited for breast or vaginal examinations by an OB / GYN health care specialist.

However, as before, the inevitable open gaps, this time at the front of the patient, compromise patient modesty.

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