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Temperature regulating wheelchair cushion for prevention of pressure ulcers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2018

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Abstract

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OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: According to the US census, there are 3.3 million Americans who have to use wheelchairs in order to maintain their mobility. About 50% of these patients develop a pressure ulcer at some point during their life time. Three major factors contribute to pressure ulceration; pressure, tissue temperature, and maceration due to sweating. The objective of this study is to develop a temperature regulating wheelchair cushion in order to address elevated tissue temperatures and related sweating. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: We instrumented a wheelchair with cooling elements, a water filled cushion and a pump. The pump moves the water through the cooling elements where water temperature drops down to 15°C. The water then moves to the cushion where it cools the tissue and then back to the cooling elements. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: We recruited 1 healthy subject to sit on the instrumented wheelchair and then obtained thermographs of the cushion surface using an infrared thermal camera. After 1 minute of sitting on the cushion the minimum temperature was recorded as 27°C. After 10 minutes the temperature dropped to 23.3°C. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: In this ongoing proof-of-concept study we are investigating if circulating chilled water inside a wheelchair cushion is a feasible method to regulate tissue temperatures at the 25–28°C range. This range has been shown to delay ulceration under loading conditions that simulate sitting on a wheelchair. Initial results indicate that this may be an effective ulcer prevention method.

Type
Mechanistic Basic to Clinical
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Association for Clinical and Translational Science 2018