Professor from the Faculty of Nursing, Thammasat developed beds for elderly and bedridden patients

Thursday 17 August 2023

     Pressure sores are caused by constant pressure and friction on the skin. Turning the patient is one way to help prevent and reduce the risk of pressure sores. However, turning a bedridden patient with a cerebrovascular accident by a single caregiver is very difficult and inconvenient. In addition, turning a patient requires a lot of force, causing caregivers to have consequent health problems as well. Therefore, derived the development of a turning patient bed using a touch screen system with a wound notification system.

     Assoc. Prof. Jinpichcha Sathiyamas, Faculty of Nursing, Thammasat University developed beds for elderly and bedridden patients as well as patients who are unable to help themselves by analyzing the needs of beds that meet the requirement of patients for managing pressure sores. The main components of the bed are the mechanism to turn patients left and right, lifting the bedhead or bending the knees by using 4 linear actuators controlled via the touchscreen system of the mobile phone. The bed can support a weight of up to 100 kilograms with structural strength calculations in accordance with all the prescribed standards and has been tested according to medical device standards IEC 60601-1 and IEC 60601-2.

     The second component is a pressure sore notification system which is installed on the mattress through the operation of the pressure sensor. The controlling of the prototype bed's turning system can be monitored via a web application and mobile phone system. The operation of such a system is a display of the operational data through the online monitoring screen which consists of a bed control system and the status check on the patient's mattress to notify the occurrence of a pressure sores by detecting through the pressure measurement obtained from the sensor.

     The system also transmits information to be displayed in conjunction with other information on the bed that will cause notifications and display information on the application. From preliminary testing, it was found that the incidence rate of pressure sores in the sampled patients was lower than the group using normal beds.

     In addition, a group of caregiving relatives who use innovation to reduce the burden of turning patients consequently has the effect of reducing economic problems from the cost of treating pressure sores. It was found that the cost per day for bedridden care including relative opportunity cost was lower than in the non-innovative period.

     Bedridden can happen to the elderly or patients whose physical health is deteriorating until having to lie only in bed all the time and are unable to help themselves. In the elderly group who are unable to control their bowel movements or urination, thus cause dermatitis. The research team then developed a mattress to detect eczema lesions due to exposure to urine and feces through the installation of a sensor to measure changes in skin pH and a skin moisture detector. It then transmits the information received from the display sensors, just like one found in the turning bed system.

     Automatic turning bed to prevent bedsores (Petty Patent Application No. 2303000697) received the best prize, PRIX EIFFEL 2022 Platinum Medal Award at The Prix Eiffel International Invention and Innovation Contest (PRIX EIFFEL 2022) in Paris, France and a gold medal at the 25th International Idea Novelty Invention Exhibition and Fair (IDEA 2023) held in Hungary.

     Currently, it is in the process of expanding the results of the prototype development to practical use and public benefit.