Mealtime Partners, Inc.

Specializing in Assistive Dining and Drinking Equipment

October 2021 Independent Eating and Drinking Newsletter

	October Topics: Caring for the Caregiver Hydration for Hospital Patients
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Caring for the Caregiver

When the Mealtime Partner Dining System was in its infancy, analysis was done on the time spent providing mealtime assistance by caregivers, (or as we choose to describe them, mealtime partners) because an assistive dining system has great potential to alleviate caregiver burden. Feeding someone three meals each day, seven days a week, turns out to be extremely time consuming. If each meal takes 20 minutes, at least an hour a day is spent feeding the care recipient. For many people with oral motor difficulties, the time for them to have their meal can be two, or even three times longer. The result is that the person being fed is often hurried, and/or does not receive all of the calories that they should at a meal.

The US Census Bureau estimated in 2020 that 20.7 % of the U.S. population needed help completing one or more activities of daily living. In many cases this assistance is provided by a family member rather than a paid care provider. According to the Family Caregiver Alliance “Caregiving in the U.S. 2020” report, an estimated 53 million people have served as unpaid care providers to an adult or child within the last twelve months. Of those caregivers 6 in 10 (61%) were concurrently employed, and of that 61%, 53% must make special workplace accommodations due to their care giving. The value of the care giving services provided by unpaid caregivers was estimated to be $470 billion.

With the large number of people providing care to others in the U.S., the health of these people must also be considered. Research shows that not only does care giving have deleterious mental health effects, including depression, but it can also have serious physical health consequences.

Therefore, the burden of care undertaken and its impact upon the person providing it should be considered, and the long term consequences evaluated. If you are a care provider, or know someone who is, make sure that you, or they, take care of themselves because if they don’t, their care recipient may have no one to look after them and will require a more formal type of institutional care such as assisted living or a nursing home.

A practical way of lessening the burden for a caregiver is through the use of assistive technology. Using a lift to move the person into or out of bed and/or to take them to the bathroom significantly reduces the physical effort expended by the caregiver to complete these tasks. A hospital bed that has electric controls can make moving the person easier or allow them to move themselves. A light-weight transport chair can be used for movement within the home, once again reducing the physical demand upon the caregiver. Transport chairs are typically small enough to be able to move throughout standard homes (homes not built or remodeled to be accessible). Drinking systems can be mounted on wheelchairs and/or beds to alleviate the need to provide regular sips of liquid. And, of course, an assistive dining device like the Mealtime Partner can greatly reduce the time required for the most time consuming caregiver activity, feeding their care recipient every spoonful of food they will receive. Many of these items can be provided through health insurance.

On a more personal level, the caregiver can (and should) receive an occasional short break by using day care facilities, or having friends, or family members come and help them. This also will allow them go to the store, or get their hair cut, or even give them a chance to go to a movie or the gym. Many individuals do not feel that they can ask for help and therefore they tend to “go it alone” as far as providing care is concerned. However, many people would be happy to help if they were asked. They just don’t know how to offer help.

Regardless of how they get help, caregivers should seek ways of reducing the burden of care, thus taking better of the caregiver!

  

Assistive Dining at its Very Best
The Mealtime Partner Dining System provides the means to eat independently for those who are unable to feed themselves in the traditional way. Because of its flexible design it can be configured to meet the needs of almost any user and will allow a relaxed, enjoyable meal that is under the control of the person eating. They are free to take a bite of food when they want, and to pause between bites for as long as they choose. Thus they are empowered to eat exactly how they want without their meal being controlled by anyone else. Because the Mealtime Partner has three different mounting systems, as well as it being placed directly on a table for use, it can be positioned to meet the need of a diverse range of users. The Support Arm allows the spoon to be positioned to deliver food very close to the user’s lips. A small forward movement of the head can access the food on the spoon. The Support Arm is suitable for individuals who have very limited head and/or trunk control because it can be fine tuned to the necessary position to provide access for them. The Mounting Shafts provide comfortable positioning of the Mealtime Partner for those who sit close to a table but are unable to put their knees under the table because they are restricted by their wheelchair or for any other reason. The Shafts allow the device to pivot away from the table to allow easy access for users. Shafts come in five different heights.	The Mealtime Partner Assistive Dining Device Mounted on the Support Arm The Mealtime Partner Mounted on a 8-Inch Shaft
For those users who are able to sit at a table with their knees under it to eat, the Mealtime Partner can be mounted on legs. The legs position the device at the appropriate height for each user. Legs are supplied in three different heights. For additional information, please call us at 800-996-8607, or email our staff for assistance by clicking here.
	The Mealtime Partner Mounted on 6-Inch Legs
The Mealtime Partner Assistive Dining Device is available directly from Mealtime Partners, Inc. or Select Dealers.

Hydration for Hospital Patients

Most of us have ended up in the hospital at least once in our lives. Many hospital stays are scheduled and are to treat minor problems. With the current standards set by insurance companies for payment, many hospital visits are for day surgery and the patient is in and out of the hospital in just a few hours. However, for those visits that are an emergency and/or to treat very serious difficulties, everything is different. First, patients may start out in the Emergency Room and later be moved to another section of the hospital depending upon the type of treatment they are to receive and the level of care necessary. This might include being in Intensive Care, Cardiac Care, or a Surgical Unit. Many of these patients do not initially take food or liquid by mouth, instead they receive all hydration and nutrition intravenously, but over time they resume, first drinking by mouth, and then eating by mouth. For many, reaching for a cup and lifting it to their mouth, even if a straw is available, is a very demanding task, if not impossible. Consequently, they are dependent upon other people to help them. Frequently, the result is that they do not consume enough fluid.

Consuming an adequate amount of water is a critical component of recovery from either surgery, illness or an accident. Dehydration significantly impacts the body’s ability to heal. Without an adequate intake of water, patients heal more slowly and/or develop secondary complications. However, in many cases attaching equipment such as drinking systems or Sip N Puff control systems (etc.) to the intelligent beds used in these high-care units has proven unsatisfactory. Because the bed rails for many of the new beds are made of molded plastic to accommodate the electronics that make the beds so capable, clamping equipment to the rails has presented a problem. Using commonly available clamps, the plastic bed rail begins to compress due to the clamping pressure and the clamp does not maintain its position over time. Thus the equipment shifts its position and soon becomes unavailable to the user. Mealtime Partners now offers a Hospital Bed Clamp System that solves this problem. It uses both the top and bottom bed rails to distribute the clamping pressure over a much larger area and, thus, will hold its positioning indefinitely. An Attachment Holder is fastened to the clamp body and permits various shaft sizes to be held securely. Thus attaching a drinking, or other type of system is now easily accomplished.

The Attachment Holder fastens to the side of the Clamp and can firmly hold a Flex Arm that comes with several products or a Drink Tube Positioning Conduit that comes with the Mealtime Partners Hospital Bed Hydration System. The Attachment Holder is held on the clamp body with two screws and can be rotated 90 degrees, so the device it is holding can emerge in either direction. Also, the clamp can be mounted with the Attachment Holder on the inside or outside of the bed rails. (Two tools are provided to easily accomplish these changes.) A thumb screw is used to hold the Flex Arm or Drink Tube Conduit (or other similar size device) in place so they can be quickly removed for cleaning or patient care without tools. 

Hospital Bed Clamp with Attachment Holder

 

Using the 2-piece bed rail clamp and Attachment Holder described above, Mealtime Partners offers two products: a Hospital Bed Clamp System and a Hospital Bed Hydration System.

The Mealtime Partners Hospital Bed Clamp System provides a method of mounting flexible arms (commonly used to mount Sip N Puff Controls) firmly to a hospital bed rail. For patient’s who are unable to use their hands and arms to use their hospital bed controls, a Sip N Puff control may be provided so that they can call the nurse, turn the television on or off, change television channels, etc. Because of the yielding nature of the bed rails, the Sip N Puff is likely to move if clamped with a traditional single point clamp. Therefore, the most vulnerable patients may not be able to call for help because the Sip N Puff control has slipped out of position. The Mealtime Partners Hospital Bed Clamp is designed to hold its position indefinitely.

 

The Mealtime Partners Hospital Bed Clamp System with Sip N Puff and Drinking Tube

The Mealtime Partners Hospital Bed Hydration System provides a stand-alone hydration system for the intelligent hospital beds described above. The system provides drinking tube positioning using a tube positioning conduit, to hold the drink valve close to the patient’s mouth for easy access. Everything that is needed to add drinking to an intelligent bed is included with this system. The bladder that comes with this system holds 100 ounces of liquid. Therefore it does not have to be refilled as frequently as a cup, saving hospital staff time. This hydration system makes a drink readily available to patients through the day and night.

The Mealtime Partners Hospital Bed Hydration System

For information about all of the Mealtime Partners Drinking Systems, click here, or call 800.996.8607.

 

Did You Know? Did you know that October 6th is recognized as World Cerebral Palsy (CP) Day? It is a day that people from around the world are asked to celebrate those living with CP. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Cerebral means having to do with the brain and Palsy means weakness or problems with using the muscles. CP describes a group of disorders that affect a person’s ability to move and maintain balance and posture. CP is caused by abnormal brain development or damage to the developing brain that affects a person’s ability to control his or her muscles. CP affects more than 17 million people internationally. World Cerebral Palsy Day has been created to not only celebrate those effected by it but also draw attention to the needs of those living with it and help create a more accessible future for everyone!