Medicine for children is often provided in a liquid form in order to aid a parent in administering the medicine to the child. Unfortunately, medicine often has an unpleasant taste, and children will refuse to take the medicine. A child will associate the use of a spoon, syringe, or medicine dropper with the administration of medicine, and its associated unpleasant taste, and will subsequently resist a parent's attempts to administer the medicine. Additionally, a child may learn the taste, smell, color, and overall appearance of medicine and decline taking the medicine regardless of how the medicine is presented.
Attempts have been made to encourage children into taking medicine by disguising the medicine or administering process. For instance, a child may be given a cup with a see-through portion that allows the child to view an attractive looking drink inside of the cup. However, the bottom of the cup has a hidden chamber that holds liquid medicine. One end of a straw is placed into fluid communication with the medicine in the hidden chamber, and the other end of the straw is presented to the child. The child may take a sip from the straw and think he or she is drinking the attractive looking drink in the cup, but the child will actually be drinking medicine directly from the hidden chamber. While this arrangement may initially fool the child, the child will become wise to this trick and subsequently refuse to drink from the cup since the taste will be of the unpleasant tasting medicine.
Medicine may also be administered to a child by mixing the medicine with a beverage that the child likes. For instance, medicine may be mixed with a particular type of juice that a child is familiar with and enjoys. Administering medicine in this type of manner may be problematic for some types of medicine in that the medicine will become disadvantageously diluted upon mixing. Also, inaccurate dosing will occur if the child only drinks some of the contents of the cup. In such an instance, the parent will not know the amount of medicine that was actually consumed by the child and the amount left in the cup.
Accordingly, a cup that allows a parent to know the amount of medicine actually delivered to the child and that masks the unpleasant taste of the medicine from the child would be useful.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds