Many persons suffer from temporary or chronic incontinency. Persons who are incontinent are incapable of controlling their excretory functions.
To care for such persons, absorbant pads are often placed beneath them while they sit or lie down. Most such pads are disposable. Once they have served their function, they may be thrown away.
Many problems are associated with such disposable pads. For instance, the absorbant material contained therein tends to bunch up. As a result, the pad may not be comfortable to the incontinent person. Such pads also have limited absorbency. Finally, such disposables tend to be relatively expensive for use over any extended period of time.
Non disposable pads tend to be somewhat more economical, since they may be reused following an appropriate washing and drying. Nevertheless, such pads often tend to suffer from some of the problems described above, such as bunching up. In addition, many such reusable pads tend to be relatively expensive to purchase. Manufacturing techniques employed to avoid the bunching up problem and to assure a long useful life can greatly increase the manufacturing costs, and hence the user cost, of the product.
There exists a need for a reusable incontinent care pad that will not tend to bunch up, that will be comfortable to the incontinent person, and that will provide appropriate absorbent characteristics. Preferably, such a pad should be relatively inexpensive to manufacture.