Overview
Pressure injuries are localized damage to the skin and/or underlying tissue that usually occur over a bony prominence. Pressure injuries most commonly develop in individuals who have low-mobility, such as those who are bedridden or confined to a wheelchair and consequently are attributed to some combination of pressure, friction, shear force, temperature, humidity, and restriction of blood flow and are more prevalent in patients with chronic health problems. Although we have witnessed
unprecedented advances in medicine and health care, pressure injuries remain a major patient care problem and, in fact, are classified as “never events’’ as they should never occur in a healthcare facility. This project will make significant contributions to pressure injury eradication by developing a low-cost, patient-centric system to persistently and autonomously monitor factors that can cause pressure injury occurrence, and automatically detect conditions favorable to pressure injury formation, giving visual feedback on which areas are at risk, and alerting medical healthcare staff accordingly.
Publications
- S. Mansfield, K. Obraczka, and S. Roy, “Pressure Injury Prevention: A Survey,” IEEE Reviews In Biomedical Engineering, pp. 1–3, 2019.
Collaborators
Sam Mansfield (UCSC), Sachin Rangarajan (UCSF), Eric Vin (UCSC), Katia Obraczka (UCSC), Shuvo Roy (UCSF), Dr. Hanmin Lee (UCSF), Dr. David Young (UCSF)