Protecting a Port for Sports

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I have two teenage oncology patients who would like to play baseball this season, but both have port-a-caths. They have been cleared by the peds oncologist, but want something to protect their ports during play. Has anyone encountered anything like this / have any ideas on what they could use? Thanks!

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Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

A friend of mine made a port protection device from a hard-shelled kneeling pad (like a mason or carpet layer would use) and sewed a pocket into her son's shirt to hold it over the port. The shirt was fairly tight (think under armour) and so it stayed where it was needed.

You could also fashion a harness - I'm thinking like a clavicle strap to hold the protection?

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Hmmm that is an interesting question. If the ports are on the left side there are special baseball shirts with padding near and over the heart to protect it in case a child got hit with a baseball. That's all I can think of other than putting a whole bunch of gauze over the port for padding

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Specializes in Emergency Department.

You might want to consider contacting a local high school or college/university athletics department and see if you can talk to their athletic training staff. They may have the ability to make exactly what is needed. I don't know if they'll actually help them out, but I'm reasonably sure that if they have a hydrocollator and some thermoplastic stuff, they should be able to fairly easily make a shield for those ports that would comply with any sports-specific padding restrictions. Gauze in and of itself probably won't be sufficient to protect the port, and it would just fall away.

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Specializes in kids.

Also check with the state athletic associations (they usually govern high school sports) and they may also be able to tell you what has worked in the past and what is allowable by the state -which usually falls under the jurisdiction of the National Federation for High School Sports.

I hope they make out ok!:yes:

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Specializes in Infusion Nursing, Home Health Infusion.
Patent US20110023218 - PORTACATH PROTECTION DEVICE - Google Patents Not sure if this is on the market
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Lil Hugz LLC

these can be made any size and you can add padding under. You can even add something like a half cut tennis ball for more protection.

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