ABSTRACT
Wearable products (skirts and pants to highly personal products) incorporate features for both privacy and protection related to the structures for elimination and reproduction. Day-to-day lower torso garments serve many functions, and generally shield the external genitals from view. Other wearable products serve to protect the genitals from direct trauma or infection, manage menstrual bleeding or incontinence, or prevent pregnancy. Sports equipment, e.g. hockey hip pads and coccyx (tailbone) pads, protect from impact.
Fashion wearables range from “second skin” garments (leotards and tights) to gathered skirts. Wearable medical products vary from ostomy bags to collect feces after removal of intestinal sections to medication patches. Products and devices for the legs range from pantyhose, socks, and leg warmers to trauma protection, braces, and prosthetic limbs. Shin guards may extend to cover a portion of the ankle.
Terminology: leg, lower torso region, bony pelvis, pelvic girdle, pelvis, pelvic outlet, pelvic diaphragm, perineal region, gait
Systems and vital organs: reproductive (female: uterus, ovaries, and vagina; male: testes, prostate gland, and penis), digestive (parts of the small and large intestine, appendix, rectum, anus), lymphatic (lymph collectors and lymph nodes)
Systemic components pass from the lower torso and legs to upper torso: blood vessels, spinal nerves and peripheral nerves, and lymphatics
Bony appendicular skeletal structures: pelvis and legs
Muscles, ligaments, and joints involved in spine, pelvic girdle, and leg motion
Key soft tissues: male and female external genitals; the pregnant uterus
Wearable product opportunities and challenges for the torso and legs
Coverage allowing privacy, protection, and movement, e.g. yoga wear, athletic supporters, men’s underwear, women’s underwear
Managing body functions, e.g. incontinence management products, menstrual management products, infant diapers, adult diapers
Compensation for impaired lower torso functions, e.g. prosthetics
Accommodating motion and gender in fit and sizing, e.g. maternity wear
