Measurement of interface pressure applied by medical compression bandages

Medical compression bandages (MCBs) are widely used to treat venous leg ulcers. Interface pressure measurement devices like PicoPress® transducer are used occasionally to measure the pressure applied by MCBs to train nurses to apply MCBs with the correct pressure profile to patient's leg and for quality assurance purposes. However, most of these devices provide only single point pressure measurement. Some of them like the Medical Stocking Tester (MST) and the Oxford Pressure Monitoring MK can provide multiple points of pressure measurement simultaneously. However, the current available systems cannot map the pressures applied by MCBs to a leg at 16 or more points simultaneously. Flexible sensors like FlexiForce® seem to provide a good alternative to current pressure measurement system. This paper will report on the work carried out to compare the pressure measured using FlexiForce® force sensors with the pressures measured using PicoPress®, which is a pneumatic transducer, and FS01 force sensor, which is an ultra profile rigid MEMS force sensor. In addition, it will compare the pressures measured using the three sensing transducers with the pressures computed from the amount of extension in the MCB, which is applied to the medium which these sensors are attached to.