Device helps patients eat post-surgery
A TOOWOOMBA business has secured $250,000 in grant money to market a product designed to reduce carer hours in nursing homes and help patients who are recovering from surgery to eat.
Bayro No. 1 has developed its RoseCup, a feeding device for clients with difficult swallowing for a variety of reasons, known as dysphagia.
Managing director Dr Gawie Roux initially created the RoseCup for people in nursing homes but said the product had a wider reach, including hospital stays.
About 200 of the cups have already been sent to speech pathologists and exported to test their efficiency. The RoseCup took about seven years to develop.
Dr Roux worked in hospitals and aged-care facilities for almost 30 years and said the device was inspired by a dementia patient, 89-year-old Rose Palmada from rural Queensland.
Hannelie Roux, a registered nurse, said the risk of aspiration pneumonia in elderly patients, where food is inhaled into the lungs, was also reduced by using the cup.
Features of the cup include three handles to assist the client if needed and the ability to drink while lying down.
This potentially could help patients in hospital to drink fluids on their own.
“The only feeding options on the market for dysphagic patients are made from hard plastic and these don’t protect the airways sufficiently,” Dr Roux said.
“They overlook the simple, intuitive way we all learned to feed; the principle of sucking before swallowing.”
He said the cup used silicone spouts to make swallowing safer.
Dr Roux said with the help of the cup, clients could eat on their own, leaving carers to undertake other tasks.
He expected to export to both first and third-world countries with the help of the funds.