Background

VitalWear uses optical fiber sensing technology to monitor relevant parameters for non-invasive medical applications. Photonic measurement technology is integrated into textiles such as bed sheets, mattress covers or clothing, which enables continuous and autonomous patient monitoring with high patient comfort and with low effort for the care providers.

VitalWear initially focuses on pressure ulcer prevention, via improving patient-specific risk assessment and facilitating early detection. Its solution significantly reduces the time that the nursing staff needs to spend on prevention protocols and helps to achieve lower pressure ulcer incidences.

NEED AND OPPORTUNITY

Our ageing society and the increasing staff shortages cause our healthcare systems to become unsustainable within the next 10 years. This especially applies to the prevention and treatment of pressure ulcers, which occur when skin cells die under stress as a result of sustained forces on the skin and on underlying tissues. Pressure ulcers represent a significant, world-wide healthcare challenge, which in the United States every year leads to the death of 60,000 of the 2.5 million affected patients and to additional healthcare costs of more than 26 billion dollars – as well as to 17,000 legal cases against healthcare institutions, which are settled for an average of 250,000 dollars.

The current clinical practice guidelines call for the frequent repositioning and visual inspection of at-risk patients, which implies that guideline-compliant pressure ulcer prevention and care is currently very time consuming for nurses, as each repositioning or visual inspection event takes 5-10 minutes for 1-2 nurses. At the moment, this mechanism is not yet “smart”, i.e. these repositioning actions are carried out purely based on timers – and not based on actual patient-specific information. As a result, some pressure ulcers are not caught early enough, so that pressure ulcer incidences are still much too high, while some patients are repositioned too often, causing unnecessary work for the nurses and unnecessary disruptions, especially also at night, for patients.

To avoid both under- as well as over-treatment and to provide optimized, patient-specific pressure ulcer prevention, there is a need for a solution that detects the actual development of a pressure ulcer at an early stage and informs the nursing staff accordingly.

SOLUTION

VitalWear’s unique monitoring and decision support solution informs nurses about which patients need attention to prevent a developing pressure ulcer from fully forming and about which patients currently do not need to be repositioned. Via timely interventions, pressure ulcer incidences are lowered. By not disturbing patients who do not require repositioning, nurses reduce, without higher risks for their patients, the amount of time that they need to allocate to pressure ulcer care.

The VitalWear solution consists of sensor sheets that are installed in hospital or nursing home beds, a readout device, data processing and interpretation algorithms, and a user interface for the nurses. The monitoring focuses on the body areas where pressure ulcers typically occur, such as the sacrum and heels.

IMPACT

By continuously and autonomously monitoring the pressure ulcer risk of patients, the required effort that the nursing staff needs to allocate to pressure ulcer prevention is significantly reduced.
The early detection of developing pressure ulcers enables interventions at an early stage, which helps to reduce the prevalence of pressure ulcers, especially for the more harmful and more costly higher-level pressure ulcer categories.

TECHNOLOGY

Optical fibers with integrated Fiber Bragg Grating sensors measure form changes on nanometer level with a very high sensitivity and reliability.
These form changes correspond to relevant measurement parameters, such as mechanical force (pressure, strain, shear), temperature or humidity, which can, in combination with smart algorithms, be used to draw conclusions about the condition of a patient.

The optical fibers can be integrated into textiles to create sensor surfaces with a suitable resolution of sensor points, which can be easily deployed in various care environments.

As the sensors are sensitive to a variety of influences at the same time, the separation of the different measurement parameters from the measured signal is a critical competence.

Several publications report measurable temperature changes on the skin surface during the early stages of the development of a pressure ulcer. Local skin temperature decreases when blood or lymph flow is obstructed (ischemia) and increases when the body reacts to cell damage underneath the skin (inflammation).

VitalWear leverages optical fiber sensing technology, which detects physical properties with an extremely high accuracy. VitalWear measures pressure and temperature continuously – other relevant measurements may be added in the future. VitalWear integrates the sensors into textile materials to create flexible and versatile measurement surfaces, which are placed between the patient and the supportive surface (e.g. mattress or wheelchair). VitalWear’s algorithms analyze the collected measurements over time to determine the specific risk for each individual patient.