Hasta La Gadget!

Jul 24

Smart mattress checks pressure with thousands of sensors

The system's instant feedback alerts caregivers when a patient should be turned to prevent pressure ulcers.

(Credit: Wellsense)

For the young and healthy, bedsores are about as low on the totem pole of concerns as growing old. But for anyone who has spent much time in an intensive care unit, where patients are often bedridden, pressure ulcers are a constant concern.

So Wellsense, a company in Nashville, Tenn., has come up with a monitoring technology to prevent them from forming in the first place. The approach utilizes thousands of sensors that form an electronic sheet over a mattress to detect in real time the precise distribution of pressure across the mattress. The system links up with a handheld monitoring device that displays images of pressure distribution and sounds alarms if patients need to be turned. It even keeps a history of the patient’s positioning that caregivers can access across multiple shifts.