EP2469006B1

EP2469006B1 - Casing for doors mounted in rooms provided with disabled persons lifting and transport mechanism

Info

Publication number: EP2469006B1
Application number: EP20110425303
Authority: EP
Inventors: Loris Zuin
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2010-12-23
Filing date: 2011-12-21
Publication date: 2013-07-24
Anticipated expiration: 2031-12-21
Also published as: ITVI20100347A1; EP2469006A1; IT1403476B1; ES2432104T3; DK2469006T3

Description

The present invention refers to a casing for doors, for example of the swinging-sliding or swing-door with one or two shutters type and however mounted in rooms provided with disabled persons lifting and transport mechanism or otherwise unable, even temporarily, to walk in independently effective and safe way.
WO 88/09159 A1 and US 39 805 082 A show relevant rail suspending hoisting devices.
From WO 02/02897 A2 a door frame system is known.
Such a lifting and transport mechanism comprises, in general, a guide rail and support group, equipped with a proper sling, hanging from the guide rail along which is made sliding and available to the disabled person in order to allow to ease caseworkers during handling of the disabled person in the rooms of a building, such as a house.
As known, private houses, reception (private or public), hospital stay, care and/or rest structures, such as hospitals, nursing and cure homes, psycho-motor rehabilitation centres and similar boards, for disabled, infirm and/or affected by disability, illnesses, diseases or bone fractures persons that, even temporarily, prevent their independent ambulation and often force them to mostly sedentary or in bed life, are now all provided in their rooms with lifting and transport mechanisms, installed on the ceiling. These mechanisms aim and function so as to ease the work of the persons involved in taking care of the aforesaid disabled persons or with problems of independent ambulation, allowing to the first ones to move and accompany the second ones from one room to another of the building, for example from the hallway to the bedroom, bathroom, rehabilitation or special care points or kitchen, with greater ease and safety and mostly with less physical effort.
Indeed, disabled persons are very often subjected, almost inevitably as a result of the life they are forced to lead, to appreciably increase in weight, so as to make almost improbable, impossible and in any case hard, against their will, for people who take care of them (care workers, nurses, and so on) lifting from a bed, stretcher, chair, sofa or other structure in order to take them from one room to another. Notoriously, lifting and transport mechanisms available on the market and recoverable at work include, as said, at least one guide rail and support group, provided with a sling designed for the purpose, hanging the guide rail along which is made sliding during transport of the disabled person from a room to another of the housing or hospital stay plane.
It seems evident that, during such a transport phase of the disabled person, the physical effort that must be performed by the operator who takes care of his own patient is significantly content and mainly restricted to the previous phase of lifting from the place where the disabled person is forced sick.
In substance, during transport, the operator only has to accompany the movement along the guide rail, usually imparted by appropriate motorization means, of the disabled person fastened to the sling of the support group hanging from the guide rail itself.
However, the current situation relating to the transport of the disabled, infirm or suffering from disabilities persons inside the rooms of a building still presents some recognized drawbacks.
The main drawback of the prior art comes from the fact that the guide rail along which the support group slides and, with it, the slung disabled person inevitably stops at the door.
Consequently, the physical effort that the operator intended for his patient has to bear when he must accompany him from one room to another in the housing or hospital stay plane by passing through the door is quite significant and often detrimental for the health of the operator itself, especially for his back.
In these circumstances, indeed, the operator must necessarily stop at a room the patient's movement along the guide rail, while is fastened to the sling and hanging from the support group, open the door, partially release the patient from the support group making him swinging and pass with him the doorway in order to reach the adjacent room where he is finally fastened to the support group again.
Not by chance, specific laws have been issued in this regard just in order to safeguard the physical health of the staff intended for the care of disabled persons and specifically providing the maximum weight which can be lifted and transported.
In addition, it shines clear that the operations to be performed to pass through the door that divides a room from another are rather laborious and lengthy over time, without mentioning the even moral and psychological uneasiness that the disabled person still must bear when the operator holds him at his arms and he is further limited in its autonomy.
Such a situation is only partly mitigated by the provision of swinging-sliding and, therefore, notoriously easy to open doors in the rooms.
A last but not least drawback of the state of the art is constituted by the fact that it is necessary to assemble as many support groups as many rooms are provided in the building frequented by the disabled patient.
The present invention intends to overcome the drawbacks of the prior art just complained.
In particular, primary purpose of the invention is to design a casing for doors for doors mounted in rooms provided with disabled persons lifting and transport mechanism which have the predisposition for the insertion of a guide rail of such a mechanism even through the door itself, and does not interrupt the structural continuity of the guide rail itself as it happens currently.
Under such a requirement, it is task of the invention to limit the physical efforts that the operator must bear in order to transport a disabled patient from one room to another through any door.
It is a consequent task of the invention to safeguard at an extent greater than the prior art the physical conditions of the operator who cares and accompanies a disabled patient.
Another task of the present invention is to assure more dignity to the disabled patient during his passage in the housing or hospital stay rooms of a building, insofar as it is increased his independence from the operator compared to the current state.
It is another purpose of the present invention to make available a casing for doors for doors mounted in rooms provided with disabled persons lifting and transport mechanism which allows to make easier and faster than the prior art the operations that a caseworker must perform in order to bring these people from one room to another passing through the doors.
It is a last but not least purpose of the present invention to reduce compared to the current state of the art the number of components of the support group of the lifting and transport mechanism which must be mounted in order to allow easy and practical movement of disabled persons in the various rooms of a building as well as between one and another of the rooms themselves.
Said purposes are achieved through a casing for doors mounted in rooms provided with a disabled persons lifting and transport mechanism as to the attached claim 1, as hereinafter referred for the sake of exhibition brevity.
Further technical features of detail of the casing for doors of the invention are set forth in the corresponding dependent claims.
Advantageously, the casing of the invention integrally assures the structural continuity, also through a door, of the guide rail of the disabled persons lifting and transport mechanism mounted in the rooms of a building. This thanks to the fact that the casing (or window frame) of the invention provides a setting for such a guide rail, namely the open profile recess (or slot) made in the upper head of the perimetrical self-bearing support frame.
Equally advantageously, the casing object of the present invention involves a significant reduction in the physical efforts that the operator must bear in order to carry a disabled patient from one room to another through any door: indeed, unlike the current situation, the staff have anymore not to take the patient in their arms and swing him in order to carry him through the door.
This on one hand, compared to the known art, also more preserves the general physical conditions of the operator who takes care and accompanies a disabled patient, especially the normal functionality of his back, and, on the other hand, makes the patient himself more independent from the operator who assists him.
At the limit, once placed in the sling of the support group of the lifting and transport mechanism, the disabled patient may also move by himself among the rooms of the housing plane, with the obvious positive psychological consequences that this entails.
Still advantageously, the casing of the present invention, beyond to make them less hard and heavy, simplifies the operations that must be performed to carry a disabled or infirm person from one room to another of a house or any public or private structure. Furthermore, in advantageous manner, the casing for doors of the invention limits compared to similar known mechanisms the number of components of the support group of the lifting and transport mechanism to be mounted in order to allow assistants to handle their patients in a convenient, efficient and safe way in the rooms of a building and, in particular, between one and the other of the rooms themselves.
The casing of the invention requires, indeed, a single support group for the transport of the infirm person, unlike what happens today where it is necessary to set a support group for each room accessible by such a person.
Said purposes and advantages, as well as other ones that will emerge later, will greatly appear from the following description, relating to a preferred embodiment of the casing for doors of the invention, give by indicative and illustrative, but not limitative, way with reference to the attached drawing tables in which:

figures 1 and 2 are two assonometric views of the casing for doors of the invention in applicative conditions, coupled with one swinging-sliding shutter and disabled persons lifting and transport mechanism;
figures 3 and 4 are a truncated and partial enlargement of a first glimpse of the upper part of the casing of figure 1 and 2, with the shutter in a first operating position;
figure 5 is a partial and truncated enlargement of figure 3 and 4;
figure 6 is a truncated and partial enlargement of a glimpse of the lower part of the casing of figure 1 and 2, with the shutter in a third operating position;
figure 7 is a schematic plane view of the casing for doors of the invention, in applicative conditions.

The casing for doors P mounted in rooms provided with a disabled persons lifting and transport mechanism, as a whole indicated with M, is shown in figures 1 and 2 where it is globally indicated with 1.
It has to be noted that the casing 1 includes a perimetrical self-bearing support frame, on the whole signaled with 2, suitable to be firmly coupled with the side wall, for example made of masonry or plasterboard, delimiting a compartment V made in the room.
According to the invention, the upper head, indicated overall with 3, of the perimetrical support frame 2 presents an open profile recess 4, facing the compartment and suitable to house a guide rail B belonging to the lifting and transport mechanism M and mounted in the ceiling of the room; in this way the guide rail B becomes independent.
In particular, as better highlighted in figures 3-5, in this case the open profile recess 4 develops for the full depth and a large part of the entire height of the upper head 3.
The open profile recess 4 presents a profile equivalent or conjugate to the profile of the guide rail B of the lifting and transport mechanism M.
Preferably but not necessarily, the open profile recess 4 presents a square profile, visible in particular in figure 5.
Basically, the open profile recess 4 presents a width variable in the range of values 50÷100 mm and a height variable in the range of values of 50÷200 mm, following the shape of the profile of the guide rail B.
In other embodiments of the casing of the invention, not shown, the open profile recess may present a shaped profile, for example provided with convexities.
The quoted figures show that the upper head 3 includes a first section bar 5, suitable to be coupled with the side wall delimiting the compartment V, and a second section bar 6 coupled below with the first section bar 5 and actually presenting the open profile recess 4.
Purely by preferred way, the second section bar 6 of the upper head 3 in this case presents the side faces 6a, 6b in sight, typically presenting the function of upper external view.
It is, indeed, understood that in other embodiments of the casing of the invention, not represented herein, the second section bar of the upper head and the guide rail could be hidden by a false ceiling in such a way that the bottom surface, facing said local, of the guide rail of the lifting and transport mechanism is coplanar with the lower wall of the false ceiling.
In such a case, the guide rail will properly present, at the bottom edge, a longitudinal bended tooth that allows correct and efficient installation of the false ceiling.
Preferably but not necessarily, the perimetrical support frame 2 is, as a whole, made of metallic material: preferably, such a metallic material is die-cast aluminium, meeting the European standard EN AW 6000 T5.
It is understood that the further embodiments of the casing of the invention could include a perimetrical support frame made of plastic material, such as PVC, wood or other materials with high mechanical strength suitable for the purpose.
Moreover, the perimetrical support frame 2 assumes heights set by specific regulations in force in the building field and variable in the range of values of 2,100÷3,000 mm in height and 700÷2,500 mm in width.
The perimetrical self-supporting frame 2 presents, in general and preferably, rounded profiles (without sharp edges), thickness equal to 15 tenths of millimetre and vertical and horizontal elements (such as, as said the first section bar 5 and the second bar 6) telescopically assembled each other.
In the preferred applicative embodiment here described, the casing 1 is coupled with a so-called swinging-sliding door, having an sliding and rotation opening movement both in clockwise and counterclockwise, as clearly shown not only by figures 1 and 2 but also by figure 7.
In order to allow the sliding and rotation movement of shutter A, the door P typically comprises a rotation mechanism, combined with upper part and the lower part of the shutter A, sliding in a first longitudinal slot 7 made in the lower surface 6c of the second section bar 6 of the upper head 3, as well as a second longitudinal slot, not visible, made in a laminar plate 8, visible in figure 6, provided with ends fixed to the lower ends of the inner uprights 9, 10 of the perimetrical support frame 2 and arranged substantially close to the floor T.
Figure 7 schematically shows one of the possible applicative conditions of the casing 1, mounted on a wall R made of masonry or plasterboard, having for example a thickness S equal to 10 cm, and supporting the swinging-sliding shutter A.
In particular, by way of pure and not limiting example, the overall gap L₁ of the compartment V which houses the casing 1 is equal to 116.6 cm, the light of net passage L₂, for which the swinging-sliding shutter A fully opens the compartment V defining a plane arranged at 90° compared with the plane defined by the wall R, is approximately equal to 100 cm.
More precisely, with the swinging-sliding shutter A arranged in the position of figure 7 (opened), the light of net passage L₂ is formed by a first light L₃ equal to 58 cm and a second light L₄ equal to 41.5 cm, while the overall dimensions G₁ of the shutter A in a room are equal to 42 cm and the overall dimensions G₂ of the shutter A itself in the adjacent room is equal to 49 cm.
In other applicative embodiments, not shown in the drawings that follow, the door could also comprise an auxiliary shutter having width less than the swinging-sliding shutter with which cooperates in opening/closing the compartment.
The auxiliary shutter shall be provided to be revolvingly coupled with the side wall delimiting the compartment so as to usually assume a front position, in which it closes a limited part of the compartment, and if necessary a lateral position, in which it opens such a limited part of the compartment.
More in detail, when the aforesaid auxiliary shutter takes the normally front position the swinging-sliding door commonly and simply takes the open position and the close position of the main part of the compartment, which is then completely closed in this last case by the swinging-sliding shutter and auxiliary shutter.
The auxiliary shutter instead assumes the lateral position, by turning of 180° clockwise or counterclockwise when the operator 0 wants to fully open the compartment in order to allow the passage of bulkier objects and/or persons.
By virtue of the foregoing, it is, therefore, understood that the casing for doors mounted in rooms provided with a disabled persons lifting and transport mechanism of the invention reach the purposes and achieves the advantages mentioned above.
In execution phase, changes could be made to the casing for doors of the invention consisting, for example, in an upper head having a number of open profile recesses of predisposition different from that one indicated during the previous description, this number varying starting from one according to the construction requirements and design choices.
Moreover, in other applications, not shown, the open profile recess of the perimetrical support frame of the casing here claimed could house only part of the guide rail of the disabled persons lifting and transport mechanism, which does not affect the advantage brought by the present invention.
In addition, the casing of the invention could be intended even for doors of traditional type, with swing-door and not necessarily swinging-sliding shutter.
The casing object of the invention could be advantageously mounted even at rooms of a building which are suitable to receive windows and therefore not to be necessarily and exclusively intended for doors.

Claims

Casing (1) for doors mounted in rooms provided with a disabled persons lifting and transport mechanism (M), said casing (1) including a perimetrical support frame (2) suitable to be firmly coupled with the side wall delimiting a compartment (V) made in said room characterized in that the upper head (3) of said perimetrical support frame (2) presents at least one open profile recess (4), facing said compartment (V) and suitable to at least partially house a guide rail (B) belonging to said lifting and transport mechanism (M) and installed in the ceiling of said room.
Casing (1) according to claim 1 characterized in that said open profile recess (4) develops for the full depth and/or full height of said upper head (3).
Casing (1) according to claim 1 or 2 characterized in that said open profile recess (4) presents a profile equivalent or conjugated to the profile of said guide rail (B) of said lifting and transport mechanism (M).
Casing (1) according to any of the preceding claims, characterized in that said open profile recess (4) presents a square profile.
Casing (1) according to any of the preceding claims, characterized in that said open profile recess (4) presents a width variable in the range of values 50÷100 mm and a height variable in the range of values 50-200 mm.
Casing according to any of the claims from 1 to 3, characterized in that said open profile recess presents a profile shaped according to various shapes.
Casing (1) according to any of the preceding claims characterized in that said upper head (3) comprises a first section bar (5), suitable to be coupled with said side wall delimiting said compartment (V), and a second section bar (6) coupled below with said first section bar (5) and presenting said open profile recess (4).
Casing(1) according to claim 7 characterized in that said second section bar (6) of said upper head (3) presents the side faces (6a, 6b) in sight.
Casing according to any of the preceding claims, characterized in that said second section bar of said upper head is hidden by a false ceiling so that the bottom surface of said guide rail facing said compartment is coplanar with the lower wall of said false ceiling.
Casing (1) according to any of the preceding claims, characterized in that said perimetrical support frame (2) is made of metallic material, plastic material, wood or other appropriate materials with high mechanical strength.