Development of Pneumatic Active Mattress Using Tetrahedral shaped Flexible Pneumatic Actuators for Prevention of Bedsores and Transfers

Tomoko TAKIGUCHI, Feifei CHO, Tetsuya AKAGI, Shujiro DOHTA, Masashi  YOKOTA, Takashi SHINOHARA

The 12th JFPS International Symposium on Fluid Power HIROSHIMA 2024

Japan Fluid Power System Society

HIROSHIMA

In recent years, with the advancement of an aging society, the number of people who are bedridden is increasing rapidly. The number of people with disabilities who suffer from severe physical disabilities due to illness is also increasing. Among these, the number of bedridden patients is increasing significantly. Bedsores are the serious   problem for bedridden patients. Bedsores occur in various locations depending on a person's physique and sleeping position. To prevent these, the patient’s position needs to be changed. Although the task of changing body position is extremely important, it also places a large mental and physical burden on care workers. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce the burden on care workers. In this study, we investigated the development of an active mattress that uses a Tetrahedral Flexible pneumatic Actuator (TFA for short) to change body position and transfer to prevent pressure ulcers automatically.