Making continence management easier
Continence management can be very problematic for individuals with severe urinary continence difficulties, particularly in the case of limited mobility. This is especially true for women. Female urinals are highly underused because they are only effective if the user is standing or sitting at the end of a chair. Furthermore conventional female urinals require a large capacity, meaning in turn that they are large and that insertion and removal is difficult. In an effort to resolve this problem the NICMS project developed a slimline urinal. This device does not require a large capacity since urine is immediately whisked away and stored in the Liquid Handling System until it can be emptied. Since it is very small, the user does not need to undress in order to put the small urinal interface in place. This feature makes it far more usable by women than traditional urinals. The device uses a high bubble-point filter to get rid of air from the flow of liquid into the storage container. It was necessary to add more particulate filters so that the life of the high bubble point material could be preserved. In addition to ensuring that the filter stays clean, an odour and moisture reducing material has been added to the centre of the filter unit. The unit is disposable and the filter is changed once every 24 hours.
