EP4694720A1

EP4694720A1 - Protective hood for medical use, having a lens having one or more removable layers

Info

Publication number: EP4694720A1
Application number: EP24708250.6A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Giorgio Rosati; Lorenzo Secco
Original assignee: THI Total Healthcare Innovation SRL
Current assignee: THI Total Healthcare Innovation SRL
Priority date: 2023-04-14
Filing date: 2024-02-06
Publication date: 2026-02-18
Also published as: IT202300007164A1; WO2024213939A1; JP2026512161A; AU2024255310A1; CN121311133A

Abstract

A protective hood (1) configured to be worn over a helmet (2) by an operator, in particular in an operating room or in a clean room, which protective hood comprises: a front vision lens (3), configured to position, in use, at least at the operator's eyes, said vision lens (3) comprising, on an outer surface thereof (33), one or more transparent layers (40, 400) stacked on top of each other and selectively removable; an enveloping main body 10, fixed to said vision lens 3 at a peripheral region 32 of the latter and configured to completely cover the operator's head, neck and upper chest.

Description

PROTECTIVE HOOD FOR MEDICAL USE, HAVING A LENS HAVING ONE OR MORE REMOVABLE LAYERS

DESCRIPTION

Technical field of the invention

The present invention relates to a hood, or cowl, of the type used by a healthcare professional, in particular a surgeon, in association with a protective helmet.

Background

As it is known, the current surgical procedures provide that the physician wears a protective helmet, generally with instruments, above which a hood, or cowl, is worn for protecting the surgeon himself/herself from infectious agents and biological materials of the patient. The hood covers the helmet, and the the subject’s head, as well as the neck and part of chest. The hood includes a vision transparent lens, or a transparent portion, to be positioned at a dedicated opening of the helmet.

Above the hood, or better of the chest portion thereof, a gown, generally of disposable type, is then worn.

While performing some surgical procedures, liquid or semi-liquid particles can deposit on the front portion of the hood, by dirtying the visor until limiting strongly the user’s field of vision.

On the market there are solutions which provide the application of one or more transparent, adhesive but removable, layers on the outer face of the transparent lens of the disposable hood. When the lens results to be too dirty or opaque due to the particles/drops dispersed during the surgical procedure, the removal of the outermost transparent adhesive layer removes also any trace of dirt which has deposited thereon. This allows the instantaneous cleaning of the surgeon’s view.

The gripping point required to be able to “peel” away the outermost layer from the visor has to be able to be detected and manipulated easily even when it results to be slippery and/or when the double glove generally worn by the surgeon results to be slippery.

To this purpose, an accessory or eyelet is commonly fixed outside each layer, by glueing or welding. However, the so implemented layers result to be expensive to be produced due to said additional element and the related required industrial processing.

Summary of the invention

The technical problem placed and solved by the present invention is to provide a protective hood for medical use which allows to obviate the drawbacks mentioned above with reference to the known art.

Such problem is solved by a protective hood according to claim 1.

Preferred features of the present invention are set forth in the depending claims.

The main advantage consists in that the gripping point of each removable layer of the hood according to the invention is obtained starting from the removable layer itself without requiring additional components.

Other advantages, features and use modes of the present invention will result evident from the following detailed description of some embodiments, shown by way of example and not for limitative purposes.

Brief description of figures

The figures of the enclosed drawings will be referred to, wherein:

■ Figure 1 is a side perspective view of an operator wearing a protective hood according to the invention; and

■ Figure 2 shows a front schematic representation of a isolated vision lens of the hood of Figure 1.

The sizes represented in the above-mentioned figures are to be meant as purely exemplifying and are not necessarily in proportion.

Detailed description of preferred embodiments

With reference to Figures 1 and 2, a hood, or cowl, according to a preferred embodiment of the invention is designated as a whole with 1. The hood 1 is suitable to be worn by a surgeon during a intervention in the operating room. Applicative variants can provide a use in other contexts in which a garment or dressing, in particular a sterile one, is required, for example a clean chamber of a laboratory.

The hood 1 is suitable to be sterilized and provided folded in a packing, sterile too, according to the modes known in the art.

In the present embodiment, the hood 1 is of disposable type.

The hood 1 is meant to be worn above an instrumented surgical helmet 2.

On the hood 1 an inner face, or side, 15 and an external face, or side, 16, can be identified so defined since the first one, after wearing, is facing, or is in direct contact with, the operator body, whereas the second one is indeed facing towards the external environment.

The hood is configured to cover completely the head, neck and upper chest of the operator who wears it and this by means of its own enveloping main body 10. The latter in fact is made of flexible material and preferably made of fabric. The material is preferably non-woven fabric (TNT), in particular bi- or three-laminate.

The enveloping main body 10 of the hood 1 is advantageously made in one single piece. Thereon, a front portion 11 and a rear portion 12, connected and made integral by two opposite lateral portions 13 and 14, can be identified.

The enveloping main body 10 is fixed, at its own front opening 18, on a peripheral region 32 of a front vision lens 3. The latter positions, in use, at least at the operator’s eyes, preferably by extending on a wide portion of the subject’s face so as to guarantee an adequate and comfortable field of vision during the surgical procedure. The lens 3 preferably is made of transparent polycarbonate, for example having a thickness comprised in the range 0.2 - 0.40 mm. The material preferably has the following features: light transmission > about 89%, yellow index < about 1 and turbidity < about 0.5%.

The lens 3 can have means for connecting to the surgical helmet 2, in particular hooking means 31 , for example in form of through hole, suitable to engage a corresponding element, for example a (not represented) hook-like appendix, of the surgical helmet 2.

The lens 3 comprises, on its outer surface 33, one or more removable transparent layers.

The removable layers are preferably made of ultra-transparent glossy polyester, preferably having a thickness comprised in the range of about 45 - 55 pm, still more preferably a thickness of substantially about 50 pm.

The removable layers are stacked on top of each other so that, by removing the outermost one, the layer immediately underneath or the outer surface 33 of the lens remains exposed.

In the embodiment represented in Figure 2, the removable layers are two, a removable outer layer 40 and a removable inner layer 400. An inner surface of the outer layer 40 of the two removable layers is removably constrained to an outer surface of the inner layer 400 of the two removable layers. An inner surface of the innermost layer, in turn, is removably constrained to the outer surface 33 of the lens 3.

The features of the removable outer layer 40 described herein are common, mutatis mutandis, even to the removable inner layer 400. Therefore, for sake of illustration simplicity the removable outer layer 40 will be mainly described hereinafter.

The removable outer layer 40 comprises a gripping element, or point, configured so that a healthcare professional could grasp such gripping point and, by applying a sufficient traction force thereto, in particular exerted in tangential and orthogonal direction, could remove the outer transparent layer 40 thereto the grasped gripping point belongs to expose the immediately underneath inner transparent layer 400.

An inner surface of the outer layer 40 is preferably coated with an adhesive substance so as to allow the adhesion of an outermost removable layer to an innermost one or to the lens 3 and, at the same time, the removal of such external layer when the operator applies a sufficient traction force to the respective gripping point. Such adhesive substance for example is a silicone adhesive SI5.

Advantageously, the adhesive is selected so as to avoid noises similar to the torn of a scotch tape or analogous, by also guaranteeing a simple removal without residues of adhesive on the remaining layer or on the lens.

Generally, in the described configurations the removal is simple, uniform, silent and “smooth".

Advantageously, the gripping element consists of a flap 41 of the removable outer layer 40, such flap being integrating portion of the removable outer layer 40. The flap 41 is folded outwards, that is away with respect to said vision lens 3, starting from a lifting folding line. The flap 41 preferably is a portion of angle, or however radially peripheral with respect to a central portion 45 of the removable outer layer 40 which in use lies at the operator’s eyes. The gripping point of the removable outer layer 40 is positioned so as not to obstruct the vision of the operator who is wearing the hood 1.

Advantageously, in preferred embodiments the flap 41 is arranged, and detectable, in a side portion of the layer, above the positioning of the subject’s eyes. Generally, the described positioning allows the surgeon to have a reference positioning for grasping.

Near, or at, the lifting folding line 42, a through cut 43 of the removable outer layer 40 is obtained. The cut 43 has a first end 43a and a second end 43b both of them obtained inside the surface of the removable outer layer 40. In other words, a perimeter 46 of the removable outer layer 40 is not involved by the cut 43. Preferably, the through cut 43 is substantially parallel to the lifting folding line 42 and interposed between the flap 41 and the central portion 45 of the removable outer layer 40. It is to be meant that the cut 43 could also follow a direction incident to that of the line 42 and/or be placed inside the flap 41. At last, the cut 43 could also be placed along the path of the lifting folding line 42.

At the first end 43a and the second end 43b of the cut 43 respective circular holes or eyelets 44 are preferably present.

Due to the effect of residual plastic deformation to the folding of the flap 41 , along the lifting folding line 42, such flap 41 remains detached from the surface of the removable inner layer 400. So lifted, the flap 41 constitutes the gripping element and results to be easy to be detected and grasped even while wearing double surgical gloves. Otherwise, with almost no sensitivity to touch, the procedure would be very difficult.

Moreover, advantageously the flap 41 creates, given its detached arrangement, a shadow which the surgeons perceives with her/his peripheral vision and which then further eases the detection of the flap to be grasped.

When the pulled flap 41 starts to lift with respect to the underlying surface, a game of tensions takes place which causes the cut 43 made near, or at, the lifting folding line 42 to deform in an eyelet. Such eyelet offers to the fingers a firm grasp even in case the surfaces of the removable layer or of the surgical glove were slippery. In fact, the operator can insert one or more fingers inside the eyelet so as to be able to apply a traction force sufficient to detach the related removable outer layer 40 from the underneath surface. The round holes 44 are particularly advantageous since they avoid that the cut 43 extends as far a as separating completely the flap 41 from the central portion 45 of the removable layer 40 when subjected to the traction force applied by the operator.

Preferably, a surface of the flap 41 facing inwardly, that is towards the lens 3, is configured so that it does not adhere to the underlying surface, that is to the outer, or upper, surface of the removable inner layer 400. In this way the flap 41 remains well lifted and easily detectable. The surface facing inside the flap 41 for example can be without the adhesive substance which allows the adhesion of the removable outer layer 40 to the underneath surface. Or, preferably, the surface facing inside the flap 41 can be covered by a film 47 which adheres to the flap 41 by the same adhesive substance which covers the inner surface of the removable outer layer 40. Advantageously the film 47 can be a not removed portion of the protective coating (liner) which covers the whole inner surface of a removable layer before such layer is made to adhere to the underneath surface by means of the adhesive substance. On this regard, for more details refer to the description of the manufacturing method to obtain a removable layer to be applied to the lens 3 with known procedures.

Hereinafter features of the removable layers are discussed which are specific of each layer depending upon the position it has in the stack of removable layers which adhere to the lens 3.

The film 47 of the removable outer layer 40 has, on its surface which adheres to the adhesive inner surface of the flap 41 , a distinctive sign, or marker, 48, such as for example a letter or a number. In case of a hood like the one of Figure 2, that is comprising more than one stacked removable layer, the distinctive signs of each removable layer are so as to allow the operator to easily understand the order in which the stacked removable layers are to be removed. For example, the removable outer layer 40 comprises a film 47 having the distinctive sign 48 “1” whereas the removable inner layer 400 comprises a film 407 having a distinctive sign 408 “2”.

As a replacement or in combination with the distinctive marker, a different local colour of the film can be provided, to ease the identification by the surgeon.

The marker and/or the colour distinction allows even to a surgeon’s assistant to detect easily and precisely the grasping point for the removal.

Preferably, the removable outer layer 40 is substantially overlapped to the removable inner layer 400, the perimeter 46 being wholly contained inside a perimeter 406 of the removable inner layer 400.

The shape of the removable outer layer 40 defined by its perimeter 46 is so that a folded flap 401 of the removable inner layer 400 results to be exposed. In fact, at the flap 401 , the perimeter 46 does not follow anymore internally the path of the perimeter 406, but rather it has a substantially rectilinear tract, substantially parallel to a cut 403 of the removable inner layer 400.

Hereinafter the steps of a preferred method, for obtaining a removable layer 40 to be applied to the lens 3 with technologies known according to an embodiment of the invention, are shown. a) Obtaining a sheet made of transparent plastic material having an inner surface coated with an adhesive substance and covered by a protective coating (liner). b) By a die cutting machine, obtaining a removable layer 40 having a perimeter 46 and a through cut 43.

The present invention has been so far described with reference to preferred embodiments. It is to be meant that other embodiments belonging to the same inventive core may exist, as defined by the protective scope as reported hereinafter.

Claims

1. A protective hood (1), configured to be worn over a helmet (2) by an operator, in particular in an operating room or in a clean room, which protective hood (1) comprises:

- a front vision lens (3), configured to position, in use, at least at the operator’s eyes;

- an enveloping main body (10), fixed to said vision lens (3) at a peripheral region (32) of the latter and configured to completely cover the operator’s head, neck and upper chest;

- one or more removable transparent layers (40; 400), applied at an external surface (33) of said vision lens (3), so that, by removing said or the outermost of said removable layers (40; 400), the layer immediately underneath or the outer surface (33) of the lens remains exposed, wherein said or each removable layer (40; 400) comprises: a flap (41; 401) folded outwards, away from said vision lens (3), starting from a lifting folding line (42), said flap (41; 401) defining a peripheral portion with respect to a central portion (45) of the removable layer (40; 400) placed at the operator’s eyes; a through cut (43; 403), obtained near or at the lifting folding line (42), said through cut (43; 403) having a first longitudinal end (43a) and a second longitudinal end (43b) both of them formed inside a perimeter (46; 406) of the removable layer (40; 400); and

- two holes or eyelets (44), located at the first end (43a) and second end (43b), respectively, of the through cut (43; 403).

2. The protective hood (1) according to claim 1, comprising a plurality of removable layers (40; 400) stacked on top of each other.

3. The protective hood (1) according to claim 2, having, at each flap (41 ; 401), a distinctive sign (48; 408) configured to allow the operator to easily understand the order in which said stacked removable layers (40, 400) are to be removed.

4. The protective hood (1) according to claim 2 or 3, wherein each removable layer (40; 400) has a configuration such that the respective flaps (41 ; 401) of each one of the stacked removable layers (40; 400) result to be exposed.

5. The protective hood (1) according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein an inwardly facing surface of the flap (41; 401) is configured so that it does not adhere to the underlying surface.

6. The protective hood (1) according to claim 5, wherein an inner surface of each layer (40; 400) is coated with an adhesive substance such as to allow the adhesion of an outer layer (40; 400) to an innermost layer (40; 400) or to the vision lens (3) and wherein said inwardly facing surface of the flap (41; 401) is covered by a film (47; 407) which adheres to the flap (41; 401).

7. The protective hood (1) according to any one of the preceding claims, comprising several removable layers (40; 400), wherein each layer has, on its own flap (41), a distinctive sign, or marker, (48) of the layer and/or distinctive colouring thereof.

8. The protective hood (1) according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the through cut (43; 403) is substantially parallel to the lifting folding line (42) and interposed between the flap (41 ; 401) and the central portion (45) of the removable layer.