Design and clinical evaluation for patient status monitoring system of air-mattress
Journal
Biomedical Engineering - Applications, Basis and Communications
Journal Volume
20
Journal Issue
6
Pages
387-391
Date Issued
2008
Author(s)
Abstract
Pressure ulcers are commonly seen in long-term-care and bedridden patients. A common strategy to prevent pressure ulcer is the use of air mattress system. However, the effectiveness of the air mattress system is still under debate. In this study, we tried to design a system to collect the data of temperature, humidity, and interface pressure from the interface between patient and mattress. This system contained a maximum of ten sets of sensors which combined a thermistor, a humidity sensor, and a force sensitivity resistor in a socket and controlled by a MPS430 microcontroller. Data were transmitted to host computer by RS232 interface. To validate this system, a clinical evaluation experiment was performed using two different mattresses — a standard hospital mattress and a low-air-loss mattress. Twenty subjects lied on two different mattresses each for 2 h while monitoring temperature, humidity, and interface pressure at the sacral region continuously with 0.5 Hz sampling rate and averaging each 5 min epochs. The results showed that using a low-air-loss air mattress could reduce about 9 mmHg and 1°C in interface pressure and temperature (p < 0.05). However, there was no significant difference in humidity between the two mattress systems.
Type
journal article