Optical Fiber Sensing for Non-invasive Medical Applications
Autonomous Assessment of
Pressure Ulcer Risk
VitalWear discovers vital information by embedding optical fiber sensing technology in textile materials, to create innovative sensor surfaces and, ultimately, sensor clothing, for non-invasive medical applications.
APPLICATION FOCUS
VitalWear’s first application focus is the prevention of pressure ulcers, which often occur for immobilized patients or patients with reduced sensory function of the skin when skin cells under pressure die due to mechanical stress or due to restricted blood supply. Pressure ulcers are very painful for the 2.5 million patients they affect every year in the United States alone – and they even lead to the death of 60,000 of them. Pressure ulcer prevention and care are very time consuming for nurses, due to the current best practice of frequently repositioning at-risk patients. Consequently, pressure ulcers inflate healthcare costs, annually by more than $ 26b in the U.S. alone.
IMPACT
VitalWear helps to reduce the number of pressure ulcer cases and to lower the amount of time that the nurses need to spend on pressure ulcer prevention. By monitoring temperature in addition to pressure, around the clock and autonomously, VitalWear detects pressure ulcers at an early stage, so that their full formation can still be prevented. VitalWear also indicates which patients currently do not need to be repositioned, enabling nurses to save precious time. VitalWear’s competitors either require the nurses to carry out additional actions, which is not acceptable for the clinical practice, or monitor only pressure or movement, which are both not sufficient for detecting actual pressure ulcer onset.
PROTOTYPE AND CLINICAL VALIDATION
VitalWear’s initial prototype demonstrates the capability to monitor both pressure and temperature simultaneously on healthy subjects. Scientific studies as well as pressure ulcer experts indicate a correlation between skin temperature changes and the early onset of pressure ulcers. VitalWear’s clinical validation testing will demonstrate that developing pressure ulcers can be observed in real-life clinical settings.