Improving quality of life for the bedridden

Textile pressure ulcer prevention

2012-11-16

(Press-News.org) The skin is the most versatile of our organs: It protects the body from environmental effects, contributes to the body's immune system and supports metabolic functions such as breathing. The skin is always in action. Lack of movement is anathema to it. If a patient does not move, the ever higher moisture levels, pressure and effects of gravity lead to circulatory disorders. This increases the amount of toxic tissue, resulting in ulcers which can lead to life-threatening complications. This affects two groups of patients in particular: the elderly and paraplegics. There is an up to 50 per cent higher risk of these persons developing bedsores during a hospital stay, despite all the advances in methods of care. Four out of five paraplegics develop a pressure ulcer at least once in their life. Medical technology has recognized the problem. There are many approaches to increasing the comfort of those at risk of developing pressure ulcers. But some of these methods are not sufficiently effective, while others – such as mattresses with changing areas of pressure – are still very expensive.

Bed linen is the solution Anke Scheel, senior physician at the Swiss Paraplegic Centre (SPC) in Nottwil, Canton Lucerne, did therefore not hesitate when Empa asked the center to become involved in a project to develop a new kind of bed linen. "It seemed such a simple solution," recalls Scheel, "that's what I liked about it." The project is led by Siegfried Derler, who works at the Department of Protection and Physiology at Empa in St. Gallen. The trained physicist has devoted several years to research into the skin and friction, and he is currently working on the development of skin-friendly materials and surfaces. Derler has been researching the medical phenomenon of pressure ulcers since 2006. Back then he launched an initial CTI project for textile pressure ulcer prevention along with the Schoeller Group, a leading international provider of technical textiles. The results were very encouraging, and three years later the partners decided to raise the stakes, inviting the SPC to get involved.

Fewer points of contact thanks to special textile structure "We evaluated marketable synthetic fibers," explains Derler, "and developed a material with a kind of dot matrix surface." This special textile structure has two advantages: firstly, it produces fewer points of contact and less surface contact with the skin, and secondly, the microscopic spaces between the dots can absorb moisture. What followed was a highly exciting Ping-Pong process between the Empa test labs and the R & D department of Schoeller in Sevelen, Canton St. Gallen. The industrial partner optimized its weaving techniques, and Siegfried Derler's team tested the new samples on its sophisticated skin models. By the end of 2009 they were ready: The laboratory results were good enough for the fabric to be tested in hospital beds at the SPC in Nottwil. Twenty paraplegics at the end of their first rehabilitation period offered to act as a test group. Although their skin had already changed as a result of their disability, it had not yet suffered the effects of years of inactivity.

Better circulation and greater comfort Over a period of eighteen months, experts at Empa and the medical staff in Nottwil regularly checked the patients' blood circulation as well as the redness, elasticity and moisture levels of the affected parts of the skin. The subjective wellbeing of the subjects was recorded in a questionnaire. And the results were more than satisfactory: The patients sweated less, their blood circulation improved, and they felt significantly more comfortable than in conventional sheets. "We have shown that our method of bedsore prevention using textiles is effective," says Hans-Jürgen Hübner, CEO of Schoeller Medical. He is currently subjecting the new sheet to tough tests at Schoeller in Sevelen in order to show how it behaves after repeated use and cleaning. Next spring Schoeller Medical hopes to launch its innovation on a commercial basis. "We are currently building up an international distribution system," says Hans-Jürgen Hübner. He already has one potential customer in the Swiss Paraplegic Centre, which, thanks to the initial positive results, is interested in using the new sheets on a wider basis. "What's more," says Anke Scheel, "some of our patients would be interested in using the sheets at home." ### Author: Jost Dubacher

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

GOCE's second mission improving gravity map

2012-11-16

ESA's GOCE gravity satellite has already delivered the most accurate gravity map of Earth, but its orbit is now being lowered in order to obtain even better results. The Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) has been orbiting Earth since March 2009, reaching its ambitious objective to map our planet's gravity with unrivalled precision. Although the planned mission has been completed, the fuel consumption was much lower than anticipated because of the low solar activity over the last two years. This has enabled ESA to extend GOCE's life, improving ...

Fear of the dentist is passed on to children by their parents

2012-11-16

Fear of visiting the dentist is a frequent problem in paediatric dentistry. A new study confirms the emotional transmission of dentist fear among family members and analyses the different roles that mothers and fathers might play. A new study conducted by scientists at the Rey Juan Carlos University of Madrid highlights the important role that parents play in the transmission of dentist fear in their family. Previous studies had already identified the association between the fear levels of parents and their children, but they never explored the different roles that ...

Important progress for spintronics

2012-11-16

A fundamental cornerstone for spintronics that has been missing up until now has been constructed by a team of physicists at Linköping University in Sweden. It's the world's first spin amplifier that can be used at room temperature. Great hopes have been placed on spintronics as the next big paradigm shift in the field of electronics. Spintronics combines microelectronics, which is built on the charge of electrons, with the magnetism that originates in the electrons' spin. This lays the foundation for entirely new applications that fire the imagination. The word "spin" ...

Melt water on Mars could sustain life

2012-11-16

Near surface water has shaped the landscape of Mars. Areas of the planet's northern and southern hemispheres have alternately thawed and frozen in recent geologic history and comprise striking similarities to the landscape of Svalbard. This suggests that water has played a more extensive role than previously envisioned, and that environments capable of sustaining life could exist, according to new research from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Mars is a changing planet, and in recent geological time repeated freeze and thaw cycles has played a greater role than expected ...

Reconsidering cancer's bad guy

2012-11-16

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have found that a protein, known for causing cancer cells to spread around the body, is also one of the molecules that trigger repair processes in the brain. These findings are the subject of a paper, published this week in Nature Communications. They point the way to new avenues of research into degenerative brain diseases like Alzheimer's. How to repair brain injuries is a fundamental question facing brain researchers. Scientists have been familiar with the protein S100A4 for some time as a factor in metastasis, or how cancer ...

Dartmouth research: The clocks are ticking and the climate is changing

2012-11-16

Dartmouth plant biologist C. Robertson (Rob) McClung is not your typical clock-watcher. His clocks are internal, biological, and operate in circadian rhythms—cycles based on a 24-hour period. Living organisms depend upon these clocks to keep pace with the Earth's daily rotation and the recurring changes it imposes on the environment. These clocks allow the plant or animal to anticipate the changes and adapt to them by modifying its biology, behavior, and biochemistry. "If you know that the sun is going to go down, and if you are a photosynthetic plant, you have to readjust ...

Dartmouth research pursues problematic polymers

2012-11-16

"You look at the material world and see objects and how you can use them. I look at the material world and see a fascinating hidden life which is within our control, if we can only understand how it works," says Jane Lipson, the Albert W. Smith Professor of Chemistry at Dartmouth. Lipson looks at things from the point of view of both a chemist and a physicist. "What I do lies between the two sciences, and there is some engineering thrown in there, too," she says. Lipson is a polymer chemist who, by definition, deals with long chain molecules composed of repeating structural ...

Are we closer to understanding the cause of deadly sepsis?

2012-11-16

New Rochelle, NY, November 13, 2012—Following an infection, dysregulation of the immune system can result in a systemic inflammatory response and an often fatal condition called severe sepsis or septic shock. Sepsis is not uncommon, yet its cause and underlying immune dysfunction remain poorly understood. Regulatory T cells (Tregs), a component of the immune system, now appear to have an important role in suppressing the immune response in advance of sepsis, and understanding this role may lead to new therapeutic strategies for improving patient outcomes, as described in ...

Gene distinguishes early birds from night owls and helps predict time of death

2012-11-16

BOSTON – Many of the body's processes follow a natural daily rhythm or so-called circadian clock. There are certain times of the day when a person is most alert, when blood pressure is highest, and when the heart is most efficient. Several rare gene mutations have been found that can adjust this clock in humans, responsible for entire families in which people wake up at 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. and cannot stay up much after 8 at night. Now new research has, for the first time, identified a common gene variant that affects virtually the entire population, and which is responsible ...

ORNL recipe for oxide interface perfection opens path to novel materials

2012-11-16

By tweaking the formula for growing oxide thin films, researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory achieved virtual perfection at the interface of two insulator materials. This finding, published in the journal Advanced Materials, could have significant ramifications for creation of novel materials with applications in energy and information technologies, leading to more efficient solar cells, batteries, solid oxide fuel cells, faster transistors and more powerful capacitors. The research team, led by ORNL's Ho Nyung Lee, demonstrated that ...

Improving quality of life for the bedridden

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: