NewOstomyLife 2019-2020

Living with an ostomy is a taboo topic and innovation within the field has been sparse during the last decades. However, many patients live with an ileostomy. An estimated 600.000 people are living with an ileostomy in the United States and Europe, and the number is rising due to an increasing prevalence of inflammatory bowel disease and cancer leading to ileostomy.

The Need

Ileostomy, a condition where the small intestine has been diverted through the abdominal wall, significantly decreases the quality of life. Stoma-related complications, such as peristomal skin complications are common and patients are faced with new challenges in daily activities, such as leakage, odour, clothing incompatibility, physical limitations due to the ostomy pouch and psychological effects of not being able to control the emptying of bowels and living with a changed body image. Furthermore, the healthcare resources related to peristomal skin complications constitutes a substantial cost for the payer.

The Future

Our innovation is based on four weeks of ethnographic fieldwork at a gastro surgical department at Rigshospitalet in Denmark. The findings we did encourage us to continue the development of our invention with the objective of increasing stoma-related quality of life for people with ileostomy and providing an economic benefit due to less peristomal complications.

The Team