Body-support interface pressure analysis

Pressure sores cause serious debilitating and distressing effects on a large number of patients who find themselves at risk because of immobility. Prevention and treatment of pressure sores is expensive and inefficient, often due to a lack of quantitative pressure distribution data. Provision of this information by electrical means would enable more effective and efficient treatment of the growing problem of pressure sores. The initial investigations into the feasibility of a novel computer-based system for the measurement of the pressure exerted at the interface between a body and its support surface are presented. The proposed system is based around a single sheet of flexible, conductive material, exhibiting known characteristics relating its conductivity to the pressure exerted on it, and that is placed at the body-support interface. The conductivity distribution is reconstructed through the cross-section of a body from electrical measurements made at its boundary, by means of electrical impedance tomography (EIT). One such EIT reconstruction algorithm is briefly summarised. The results obtained from a computer implementation of this algorithm on a simple conductivity profile are presented. Some of the advantages of the proposed pressure measurement system and on some of the problems encountered in the design of such a system, are discussed