Women with severe continence difficulties have a very limited range of management options, either catheters or bulky pads. The Non-Invasive Continence Management System (NICMS) has been designed to provide a practical, non-invasive, alternative to conventional solutions. The device will provide suffers with independence and freedom from the inconvenience of coping with their incontinence throughout the day.
CE marked Prototype device were sent out to partners across Europe for evaluation by users. Results were gathered with evaluation questionnaires which were filled in by the user and/or carer with help if necessary from the researchers.
The system was mainly tested with the urinal interface but we have limited user feedback for the pad interface.
The clinical evaluation was designed to get the maximum feedback from the participants so that the device can be improved and developed to suit user requirements. The NICMS liquid handling system was given a good or ok rating by 74% of participants with 24% giving a poor rating. Positive themes included the ease of cleaning, the lack of odour and ease of use. Many of the negative findings were related to the prototype nature of the device. The recurrent negative themes were lack of reliability, size, weight and noise. The NICMS urinal was found to be easy to remove and clean, kind to skin and comfortable. Some participants lacked confidence in the urinal because of its small size and some found it difficult to position.
The NICMS with the urinal interface has the potential to provide an excellent toileting system for selected individuals by increasing independence, reducing the requirement for pads and reducing the amount of carer support required. However, we need to develop the finished product to be more reliable, smaller/lighter and quieter.