Embedded Textile Sensing System for Pressure Mapping and Monitoring for the Prevention of Pressure Ulcers

Despite improvements in medical industry and consequent modernization of the biomedical devices and healthcare, pressure ulcers prevalence remains high particularly in hospitalized patients that present little or no mobility. This kind of skin injury affects the patients' quality of life and their caregivers, and on the other hand, increases directly or indirectly the healthcare costs. Thus, the monitoring and early identification of the risk factors that lead to the development of pressure ulcers is important to decide what are the appropriate preventive measures. The present work aims to present a new concept of a pressure sensing and monitoring system, able to detect the pressure exerted on the surface. In this case, the system consists of a sensing matrix made from a kind of commercial piezoresistive sensors embedded in a textile substrate. The solution presented can be used together with an actuation system, which will reply in order to allow the pressure relief according to the feedback from the pressure monitoring system.