Ontex, the Belgium-headquartered personal hygiene group, has developed a smart continence management service for care homes and hospitals in Europe under the Orizon brand.

Hospitals and elderly care facilities face tremendous time and budget pressures to take care of residents, the company says, and incontinence is one of the most prevalent conditions in age care facilities

It is also one of the most important components in the cost for care for institutions, with around 80% of care home residents having some form of incontinence.

“Caregivers are under enormous strain, and we want to help them by reducing the time they spend on continence management,” said Annick De Poorter, executive vice president of R&D and sustainability at Ontex. “Our field study has shown that nurses in care homes spend almost half of their time on incontinence-related tasks. Orizon will improve the dignity of residents, reducing diaper checks – especially at night – and optimise the time dedicated to continence care by reducing the consequences of diaper leakages.”

The Orizon solution consists of a printed sensor, a transmitter clipped onto the diaper and mobile and web applications. This combination accurately determines the saturation level of the diaper and alerts caregivers when it is possibly necessary to make a change.

Ontex plans to run pilot projects for Orizon in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and the UK, with a commercial launch across Europe later this year.

During a first field study at the start of Orizon’s ongoing validation process, it was tested at the De Dennen care home in Malle, Belgium.

“Orizon improved the daily lives of our residents suffering from incontinence, as well as that of our caregivers,” said the home’s quality director, Hilde D’hont. “Diapers are now only changed and checked when needed, so residents suffering from incontinence get more time for a chat with staff and are not unnecessarily disturbed during the night. We saw a 40% reduction of leakages during the day and more than 50% at night, three out of four fewer bed linen changes, and an optimal use of absorbents. This has a positive impact on people’s comfort and on the environmental footprint of our care home.”

Incontinence is a very common condition, especially with elderly people in hospitals and care homes. According to research by the World Health Organization, between 10 and 36% of people over the age of 60 are affected by incontinence and use incontinence products. Even if incontinence is most common among the elderly, it affects all ages of the population.

The group of people over 60 years of age is expected to rise from nearly 1 billion worldwide to nearly 2.1 billion by 2050, further straining healthcare systems around the world. Orizon aims to reinvent continence care to make caregiving easier and more manageable as the population ages worldwide, especially in Europe and large parts of Asia.

Unlike most existing Ontex incontinence brands and services, Orizon is based on a monthly fee and will be brought to the market by the company’s two leading incontinence brands, Serenity and iD.

www.ontex.com