Wireless solution to prevent decubitus ulcers: Preventive weight shifting guide, monitor, and tracker app for wheel chair users with spinal cord injuries (phase II)

Abstract

Pressure ulcers pose a huge financial burden on the economy. Pressure ulcers cost between $9.1 to 11.6 billion a year in the United States. Each individual pressure can cost from $20,900 to $151,700 per pressure ulcer. Wheelchair users with spinal cord injury have a higher risk of developing pressure ulcers due to limited mobility and the countless hours they spend in the wheelchair, exerting pressure on the points of interface between the bony structure and the wheelchair cushion. The areas of interface that are under prolonged pressure lack blood flow, causing the tissue to breakdown, leading to a decubitus or pressure ulcer. Approximately 28.9 % wheelchair users in communities, 27% in nursing homes, and between 5 and 30% of hospitalized patients develop pressure sores. Nearly 70% of elderly patients develop pressure ulcers, which in turn significantly increase the healthcare management and costs and can be a cause of pain, discomfort, loss of independence and mobility in not only the elderly but also the younger patients. Mobile technology can be exploited to provide a technological solution to preventing pressure ulcers. An app was designed and developed to notify, walk through the process of weight shifting and also track the movements of the patient performing weight shifting using the accelerometer. The app was tested to find that the forward lean movements can be tracked accurately using the accelerometer but the lateral movements although tracked could not verify that the weight shifting was correctly performed. In order to fix this issue the pressure map is used as an additional sensor to track and monitor the weight shifting accurately. This paper discusses the design and development of the app in two phases.