SUPPORT ASSEMBLY

Abstract: An assembly for supporting an equipment pole, the assembly comprising a spider (25) including a central hub (27), and defining an outwardly opening axial bore in a portion of its interior, said spider further having a plurality of radial arms (45) extending from the central hub. The assembly also comprising means for attaching the pole to the spider, including a resilient sleeve defining an interior cavity and having an exterior surface, the interior surface annularly abutting a portion of the attachment end of the equipment pole and to annularly abut a portion of the interior surface of the axial bore, said assembly also comprising a plurality of support legs (49), each of said legs having pivotal connection with at least one of the radial arms of the spider, each of said legs having at least two configurations, including operational position, and a storage configuration and the assembly also comprising a latch (73) to lock the legs into the operational position, and when released, to permit rotation of the legs about the pivotal connection with the arms of the spider.

Description: SUPPORT ASSEMBLY Background of the Invention Field of the Invention This invention pertains to the field of medical care products. More particularly, it pertains to the area of medical hardware and, specifically, a support assembly for an upright pole that itself may support various medical devices such as intravenous bags, blood monitors, nurse notification devices and blood pressure equipment. Description of the Prior Art Inpatient medical care has traditionally been confined to the hospital. Hospitals have large storage areas and thus there was no need for medical hardware to be collapsible, and it was stored in its fully-extended geometry. All that has since changed. With higher hospital care costs, hospital fixed expenses have been forced to be minimized, and storage area has been converted to bed space. This requires hospital hardware to be stored in smaller spaces, and extreme hardship has been encountered in that fully-extended hardware is not only difficult to store in a confined area, but substantial damages is caused to the hardware under these conditions. In addition, there has been a surge in the development of small, economic treatment facilities in an effort to minimize fixed expenses. These small treatment facilities have little storage area, and the hardware is required to be capable of confined storage. Further, the median age of the United States population is on the increase. This has resulted in more elderly people and, concomitantly, a greater need for medical care. The government has been instrumental in attempting to decrease hospital and medical care coverage, and this has resulted in private efforts to conduct medical treatment in the home. Home treatment necessitates the transport of medical hardware via automobile, and SUBSTITUTESHEET these factors have urged the development of collapsible medical hardware. Summary of the Invention This invention comprises a support assembly for an 5 upright support hardware pole that is foldable to a small configuration for ease in transport and storage. The traditional enlarged and heavy pole base has been changed to a series of radial legs to provide full support to whatever is being supported on the pole and, in addition, 10 permits the legs to be folded up around the pole for ease in transportation, packaging and storing. The general enlarged base of approximately two square feet has been, by virtue of this invention, reduced to a matter of a few square inches, thus allowing the visiting nurse to easily •J5 load and transport a plurality of these devices in a passenger vehicle, where such would not be the case with the traditional fully-extended pole base. This invention comprises a base that is retrofittable on the bottom of a wide variety of support poles and, in 2o addition, provides for a cushioning sleeve to be interposed the support pole and the legs to take up the shock of loading and unloading the pole with heavy medical equipment, thus providing more stability to this inventive device than is traditionally found in the fully-extended 25 circular base. The legs of the support assembly of this invention are adapted to provide strong support for heavy loads placed on the support pole and, when the pole is unloaded, to be easily and quickly pivoted upward into parallel arrangement with the pole to reduce the overall 30 geometry of the base to a few square inches. Accordingly, an object of this invention is to provide a support assembly for an upright medical equipment support pole that is foldable to a small geometry for ease in storing and transportation. Other objects include: a 3 support assembly that provides cushioning and shock absorbency for support poles that are loaded and unloaded £ '■ ' '■ —7 c^* with heavy equipment; a support assembly that is easily, quickly and conveniently foldable to a storage configuration and unfoldable into a working configuration by merely tripping a locking hook pivotally attached to 5 each support leg; a support assembly that is retrofittable to virtually every support pole in existence; and a **. support assembly that provides for receipt on the support leg ends of a variety of roller casters that permit travel of the loaded pole over a variety of surfaces including 10 rugs, carpeting and flat surfaces. Therefore, it will be appreciated that the invention comprises an assembly for supporting an equipment pole, the assembly comprising a spider including a central hub, and defining an outwardly opening axial bore in a portion 15 of its interior, said spider further having a plurality of radial arms extending from the central hub. The assembly also comprises means for attaching the pole to the spider, including a resilient sleeve defining an interior cavity and having an exterior surface, the interior surface 20 annularly abutting a portion of the attachment end of the equipment pole and to annularly abut a portion of the interior surface of the axial bore, said assembly also comprising a plurality of support legs, each of said legs having pivotal connection with at least one of the radial 25 arms of the spider, each of said legs having at least two configurations, including operational and a storage configuration, and the assembly also comprising a latch to lock the legs into the operational position and, when released, to permit rotation of the legs about the pivotal 30 connection with the arms of the spider. These and other objects of the invention will become more apparent upon a close reading of the Description of T the Preferred Embodiment taken together with the Drawings, attached hereto. While only one or two embodiments of the 35 assembly will be described and shown, other equivalent constructions are fully contemplated within the spirit and scope of this invention. Description of the Drawings Figure 1 is a cross-sectional view of the inventive support assembly and a lower portion of a typical medical support pole attached thereto showing one of the legs in its support position. Figure 2 shows a side plan view of one embodiment of the support assembly of this invention and shows one of the legs in its folded, storage position. Description of the Preferred Embodiment Figure 1 shows base attachment 1 for connecting a support assembly generally shown at 3 to the bottom end 5 of a typical hollow, aluminum or stainless steel hardware support pole 7. Base attachment 1 shows a metal or other hard washer 9 having a circular outside shape of a diameter "d" at least equal to the inside diameter "x" of support pole 7 and is attached to pole bottom end 5 by various means such as a weldment shown generally at 11, or some other rigid attachment such as glue, threading, etc. Washer 9 contains a centrally located threaded bore 13 formed therethrough. A generally cylindrical cushion sleeve 15 is positioned over base attachment 1 having a lower end 17 comprising an inwardly turned end portion 19 for abutment against the bottom of pole end 5. Sleeve 15 further includes a pair of concentric inner and outer tapered surfaces 21 and 23 preferably mutually concentric extending therealong. Sleeve 15 is made of a softer material, such as glass fiber-filled molded polymeric material, to provide for shock absorbency of loads placed upon pole 7 and this inventive support assembly. Inner tapered sleeve surface 21 has a least diameter at the narrowest part of said inner tapered surface that is less than the outside diameter "y" of pole 7, and has a greatest diameter that is greater than said outside pole g^n -I—- ^, ά J diameter "y". This allows sleeve 15 to the positioned over poles of slightly varying outside diameters that is commonly experienced in the trade. A spider 25, including a center hub 27, having an upwardly opening collar 29 that includes an inverted conical frustum surface 31 adapted to receive therein at least a portion of outer tapered sleeve surface 23 therein positioned over cushion sleeve 15. A cross-web 33 closes the lower end 35 of collar 29 except for a central aperture 37 formed therein that permits passage from below of retaining means 38, such as a headed bolt 39 upward through inwardly turned sleeve end portion 19 and into threaded bore 13 in washer 9. Bolt head 41 either bears against the bottom side of cross-web 33 through the interposition of a washer 43 therebetween to allow washer 9, attached pole end 7, and interposed cushion sleeve 15 to be drawn into tight registration therebetween or bears directly against the bottom side of cross-web 33 by having the diameter αf central aperture 37 smaller than the diameter of bolt head 41. A plurality of radially directed ears 45 extend outward from spider 25. A downwardly extending open collar or boss 47 depends from cross-web 33. A plurality of support legs 49 are pivotally connected at one end thereof, one to each ear 45 at a hinge pin 51 and extend outwardly generally equiangularly from spider 25 and terminate at ends 53. Legs 49 can be of a variety of cross-sectional configurations, one U-shaped configuration is shown generally at 55. Leg ends 53 include a depending boss 57 that contains a central aperture 59 as a means for containing the fixed end 61 of a rollable caster generally shown at 63. A spring 65 is wrapped about hinge pin 51 having one end 67 bearing against central spider hub 27 and the other end 69 bearing against a rib 71 formed across leg 49 outboard of each 45 so as to bias leg 49 and help to keep it in an upwardly _1 il folded position parallel to support pole 7 when in the storage position, as shown in Figure 2. A means for locking and unlocking legs 49 between the support position, shown in Figure 1 , and the storage position, shown in Figure 2, is shown generally at 73 and includes a clip 75 having a hook portion 77 at one end thereof and a trigger portion 79 at the other end thereof. Clip 75 is pivotally-raounted substantially midway between hook portion 77 and trigger portion 79 at a pin 81 that spans the depending side walls 83 of leg 49. Hook portion 77 is adapted to engage collar 47 and latch leg 49 into locking support engagement with pole 7. A spring 85 is bent between trigger portion 79 and rib 71 to bias clip 75 into latching engagement with collar 47. Leg 49 is released from its locked support position by rotating or pressing trigger portion 79 against the bias pressure of spring 85 to rotate hook portion 77 out of engagement with collar 47. Leg 49 can thereafter be rotated and swung upward into storage position, as shown in Figure 2. A beveled surface 87 is provided on the front of hook portion 77 that engages collar 47 during pivotal lowering of leg 49 from storage position to support position so that final rotation of leg 49 causes engagement of hook portion 77 into locked latching with collar 47. ,- ' ϊ ϊl ϊ ^-" *** ' ' .

Claims: IN THE CLAIMS : 1. An assembly for supporting an equipment pole having an attachment end, said assembly comprising: a spider having a central hub, said central hub 51 5 defining an outwardly opening axial bore in a portion of its interior, said spider further having a plurality of radial arms extending from said central hub; means for attaching the equipment pole to the 10 spider, which attaching means include a resilient sleeve defining an interior cavity and having an exterior surface, said interior cavity annularly abutting a portion of the attachment end of the equipment pole, and said exterior surface annularly 15 abutting a portion of the interior surface defined by the spider's axial bore, whereby said equipment pole may be maintained in an upright configuration extending from said axial bore; a plurality of support legs, each of said legs 20 having a pivotal connection with at least one of said radial arms of said spider, and each of said legs having at least two positions within its arc of rotation, said at least two positions including an operational position and a storage position; and 25 a latch for locking said legs into a fixed support position and for unlocking said legs to permit rotation of said legs about said pivotal connection with said spider, whereby said legs may be rotated into a storage position substantially parallel with 30 the equipment pole. 2. The support assembly as recited in Claim 1, wherein said axial bore is tapered, with the largest 'f diameter of said bore corresponding to the outward opening of said bore, whereby said axial bore is capable of mating 3 with varying outer diameters of different equipment poles. _ - - « __■ •f-" zτ 3. The support assembly as recited in any of Claims 1 or 2, wherein said resilient sleeve includes an inserted nd and a top end, and further wherein the interior cavity is tapered, with the largest diameter of the tapered cavity at the top end. 4. The support assembly as recited in any of Claims 1, 2 or 3, wherein said resilient sleeve includes an inserted end and a top end, and further wherein the sleeve's exterior surface is tapered, with the largest diameter of said exterior surface at the top end, and said exterior surface tapering toward the inserted end so that the smaller diameter of said sleeve substantially mates with said axial bore of said spider by abutment of a portion of said exterior surface of the sleeve against a portion of the surface defined by the axial bore. 5. The support assembly as recited in any of Claims 1 or 2, wherein the resilient sleeve comprises tapered surfaces for securing the equipment pole, whereby any of a plurality of equipment poles of different diameters may be secured in position by said tapered receiving surfaces . 6. The support assembly as recited in any of Claims 1 , 2 or 5, wherein the equipment pole has a threaded bore, and wherein said support assembly comprises a threaded bolt extending upwardly through the axial bore in the central hub, with the head of said bolt restrained by abutment against a portion of said spider, such that said spider is attached to said equipment pole by threadably mating said bolt with said threaded bore. 7. The support assembly as recited in Claims 1 or 6, wherein said assembly further comprises a spring to bias rotation of each of the legs, said bias being in a direction away from the locked operational position and towards the storage position. 8. The assembly as recited in Claim 7, wherein said spring is compressed between said leg and said spider. * - > __O i _ - -i-i > _-i . »__._— - 9. The assembly as recited in Claim 7, wherein the legs are maintained in a storage position by force applied by said spring. 10. The assembly as recited in Claims 1, 6 or 9, 5 wherein said latch comprises a pivotally- ounted clip having a hook portion and a trigger portion, whereby the locked position is maintained by a latching of the hook, and the unlocked position is attained by application of force to the trigger. 0 11. The assembly as recited in Claim 10, wherein said spider comprises a collar extending downwardly. 12. The assembly as recited in Claim 11, wherein the leg is locked into operational position by a locking engagement of the hook with the collar. 13. The assembly as recited in Claims 10 or 12, wherein said assembly comprises a spring to rotationally bias the clip toward locking engagement. 14. The assembly as recited in Claim 13, wherein said hook portion comprises a beveled surface for slidable o contact with the collar, said contact occurring during at least a portion of said rotation of the leg, so that the rotation of the leg toward an operational position causes firs the occurrence of said slidable contact which, in turn, then causes a movement of the hook about the collar, 5 and finally causes the hook to engage the collar in the locked position. 0 5

Inventors: VAUGHAN THOMAS L, VAUGHAN, THOMAS, L.
Applicants: VAUGHAN THOMAS L, VAUGHAN, THOMAS, L.
Application year: 1986
Main classification: F16M11
IPC codes: A61M5, F16M11