US 6,611,979 · Granted 2003-09-02
The Hospital Bed That Retracts to Cradle Your Feet
Imagine a bed where the foot end can slide away underneath, and the mattress itself has special cushioned zones for your calves and heels. This patent locks down that sliding mechanism plus the shape of the mattress padding—so when you're bedridden or recovering, your feet get custom support without pressure sores.
The plain-English version
What it protects
The claim covers a bed frame with a retractable foot section that slides back into the frame, paired with a mattress that has a specialized foot portion featuring both a calf support area and a separate heel-pressure relief section. What's protected here is the combination of the mechanical retraction system with the custom-molded mattress geometry—someone copying this bed design would be infringing on how these two parts work together to reduce foot and heel pressure.
Why it matters
Hill-Rom is a major hospital furniture manufacturer, and pressure relief is a real medical concern for patients who spend weeks or months in bed. A retractable foot section lets caregivers adjust the bed without having to slide the entire mattress, while the engineered heel and calf zones prevent the sores that develop when tissue is compressed too long. This patent gave Hill-Rom a protected design for a niche but important problem in medical bedding.
Real-world use
When a nurse needs to adjust a patient's leg position in a hospital or recovery facility, she can retract the foot section smoothly, and the patient's heel sits in a relieved pocket rather than bearing full weight on bone.
Original USPTO abstract
A bed for a person is provided. The bed includes a frame, a deck, a mattress, a pair of head end siderails, and a pair of foot end siderails. The deck includes a retractable foot section. The mattress includes a foot portion positioned over the retractable foot section. The foot portion includes a calf support portion and a heel-pressure relief portion.
Patent details
- Publication number
- US 6,611,979
- Filing date
- 2000-12-29
- Grant date
- 2003-09-02
- Assignee
- Hill-Rom Services, Inc.
- Inventor(s)
- WELLING JEFFREY R., BRANSON GREGORY W.
- CPC class
- A61G7/015
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