Advances in medical care and treatment have extended effective projected lifespans. It is estimated that by the year 2030, there will be about 70 million older persons, more than twice their number in 1990. The most rapid increase is expected between the years 2010 and 2030 when the "baby boom" generation reaches age 65. People 65 and over are projected to represent 13% of population in the year 2000 but will be 20% by 2030. As a result of this increase in the aged population, more and more people will be placed in nursing homes and retirement communities. Many of these people will be afflicted with a variety of physical and mental ailments. While modern medical science has developed procedures and treatments to counteract a number of these illnesses and afflictions, certain more simple and basic treatment problems still remain.
For example, for many senior citizens, urinary incontinence is still a major and prevalent problem. Urinary incontinence requires the nurse or caregiver to constantly maintain and check on the patient in order to prevent further complications from arising. For example, prolonged contact with wet diapers or clothing results in rapid skin breakdown and possible infection of the patient.
To combat this problem, the present practice is to insert a catheter into the patient's bladder and change it weekly. However, after 48 hours, substantially all of patients with an indwelling catheter have greater than 100,000 colonies per milliliter of micro-organisms growing in the urine. In fact, if a virulent organism is present, urinary tract infection or even invasion of the blood stream can occur. However, without an indwelling catheter, skin breakdown and infection can occur.
With males, in the absence of urinary tract obstruction, a condom type catheter with a tube at the end can be employed. However, such a device obviously presents problems for application to the female anatomy. Previous attempts at creating external female catheters have been unsuccessful in solving the primary problems associated with catheters, namely, cost effectiveness, case of application and maintaining a leak proof seal. Since proper procedure requires that the catheter be periodically replaced, a catheter which is prohibitively priced will not be cost effective for use by nursing homes or other similar institutions. In addition, this periodic replacement also demands that the catheter be easy to apply in order to prevent cumbersome and time consuming changing periods. Finally, the maintenance of a leak proof seal with the patient is especially important in order to avoid the previously mentioned problems of infection and contamination. However, in contrast to the relatively effective condom type catheter for males, the female anatomy poses some substantial difficulties for the installation of a leak proof catheter.
Accordingly, if an effective external catheter can be devised for females, it would be a great medical benefit resulting in fewer complications for the patients and less maintenance and upkeep for the caregiver.