With alert senses until surgery

Novel plastic box allows awake senses to surgery

20/01/2012

In the run-up to surgical interventions, all private objects are removed for safety and hygiene reasons. This also applies to spectacles, hearing aids and dental prostheses, which, however, has the consequence for the patients that they are often severely limited in their ability to see, hear or articulate even before the actual operation begins.

Experience this limitation „burdening many people and in many cases scary“, said Hannelore Dirschlmayer-Steiner, nursing director in the Elisabethinen hospital in Linz. For this reason, the clinic, together with three private companies and the health cluster of the province of Upper Austria, has developed the so-called Elibox, which is attached to the patient's bed and can be used to store appropriate personal aids.

Limited ability to see, hear and articulate
Many patients are dependent on glasses, hearing aids and dentures, but they are usually taken from them in the hospital room and kept in the nightstand, reports the expert. Thus, the affected persons during transport in the operating room, the preparation phase in the operating room and after the anesthesia in the recovery room and the return transport to the hospital room in their visual, auditory, and their articulatory capacity accordingly severely limited. The nursing director of the Elisabethinen Hospital, Hannelore Dirschlmayer-Steiner, knows that this is a distressing and sometimes even frightening feeling for many patients. For this reason, the hospital has developed a plastic box with support from the private sector and the health cluster Upper Austria, which can be attached to the bed of patients and allows safe placement of the glasses, dentures or hearing aids.

Elibox gives security and preserves dignity
The so-called Elibox offers in the inner part appropriate recesses for safe storage of spectacles, hearing aids and dentures. It is not left behind in the hospital room, but stays attached to the patient's bed until it is anesthetized. So those affected have their necessary utensils until just before the operation with them and the items are available to them immediately after waking up again. That way, people will „a piece of security“ returned and „also her dignity“ Sister Barbara Lehner, Vicar General and Director of the Health and Nursing School emphasized. The patients can „Listen and see everything clearly until the intervention“, making them yourself „self-determined and less uncertain“ feel, explained the Vicar General. In addition, the Elibox the person concerned may also save personally unpleasant situations, because „After all, it is degrading when someone has to speak without teeth in their mouths“, so sister Barbara on.

From June, the new box is to be used
The experts have spent over half a year working on the development of the Elibox, although the result is quite impressive despite its relatively simple approach. „To our knowledge, this practice is unique in the world“, Hannelore Dirschlmayer-Steiner explained. In the hospitals of the Elisabethinen the Elibox is to be used from next June. From then on, the box is available for storage as a storage option for personal aids and other health care facilities, so the statement of those responsible. It is also a sale of the box on the retail market for the price of about eight euros. (Fp)

Image: Dieter Schütz