This project is funded by the EU under Framework 5 (Quality of life and Management of living resources).
Key action 6.4: Coping with the functional limitations of old age
Review the existing NICMS
and develop it into a robust and acceptable device. Review
currently available female urinals and design and produce a
device that is easy for disabled people to use in conjunction
with the NICMS. To design appropriate day and night time
pad interfaces for use with the liquid-handling system. To
provide Europe wide critical testing, to produce an acceptable
and reliable continence management system.
The work for this
proposal is divided into four phases. The exploratory phase looks
at a number of features that have been identified in the previous
work on the liquid handling system as needing development. These
features make the device unreliable, heavy, and noisy or are not
easy and economical to manufacture. These features will be
investigated and solutions will be proposed. Investigations will
also proceed to provide the information necessary to successfully
develop three user/device interfaces.
The development phase
will use information gained during the exploratory phase to
develop the different elements of the non-invasive continence
management system. This will involve extensive redesign of the
filters, noise reduction and ergonomic improvement to the liquid
handling system. The user/device interfaces will also be
developed during this phase.
During the Prototyping
phase, the different elements of the non-invasive continence
management system will be produced using the information gathered
during the two previous phases. This phase extends into the
demonstration period because feedback from the testers will be
used to improve the device during the course of the project. It
is anticipated that the test centres will have many
recommendations for improvements to the all parts of the system
when they have received feedback from their test subjects.
During the demonstration
phase, the 20 liquid handling systems will be distributed amongst
the testing partners. The devices will be tested at first on
healthy volunteers before proceeding with patient testing. The
demonstration non-invasive continence management systems will be
clinically evaluated to assess the strengths and weaknesses of
the designs. Adjustments and improvements will be made during the
course of this phase.
Links
Partner Links
Loughborough: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/
UCL: http://www.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/research-groups/incont/cpe.htm
BEC: http://www.brunel.ac.uk/bec/
KBOH: http://www.kboh.nl
Lodz University: http://www.umed.lodz.pl/
Lodz Department of Family Medicine: http://www.zmr.lodz.pl/
MDM: http://www.medicaldvicemanagement.com/
Lowenstein: http://www.clalit.org.il/
APHP : http://www.ap-hop-paris.fr/
SHI: http://www.hi.se/
Other Links
European Union: http://www.cordis.lu/fp5/home.html
InContact Website: www.incontact.org
Continence World: http://www.continenceworld.com