Design and Testing of Pressure Ulcers Preventive Bed for Neonates in Neonatal Intensive Care Units

In neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), preterm infants lie down immobile for long hours in a particular position, which makes them susceptible to develop pressure ulcers (PUs). These are developed due to continuous constant contact pressure generated by the self-weight of the infants with bed surfaces on their sensitive skin, which is 60% less than the thickness of an adult and hampers blood flow from the subcutaneous areas. Therefore, it is necessary to change the posture in a periodic manner. Hospitals manage the position changes by nursing staff, which is of limited effect and puts additional loads on them. Hence, in this paper, an anti-pressure ulcer bed was designed and tested to prevent pressure ulcers and also help in reducing the effort of nurses. The contact pressure of both the neonatal phantom and neonatal baby with the silicone-made bed surface was automatically varied by fluid pressure in the multi-channels based on the actuation mechanism (which rises alternately in inflated regions and falls in deflated regions), and it was measured using the force sensors. The demonstrated work was carried out in finite element modeling (FEM) using Abaqus to validate the results. We anticipate that it’ll reduce the risk of pressure ulcers, confirming the designed bed’s performance.