Development of medical care assist bed using pneumatic planar soft actuator

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In this study, a medical care assist bed composed of pneumatic rubber balls has been developed, of which operation is based on the principle of the pneumatic planar soft actuator already developed by us. The bed is constructed with two layers structure of 409 soft tennis balls. The upper layer balls contact with a human body. The down layer balls play a different role depending on applications of the bed. In order to realize bedsore prevention, the ability of a dispersion of body contact pressure and a change of body posture has been experimentally examined.The results are summarized as followed :1. Dispersion of body contact pressureUnder the condition of that the pressure in the down layer balls is constant, the pressure in the upper layer balls is increased or decreased. The balls are expanded and contracted owing to the increase and decrease of the inner pressures. The body contact pressure above the expanded ball increases, and it decreases above the contracted ball. Then, each bo … More dy contact pressure can be adjusted by controlling the inner pressure of the upper balls. As a result, the dispersion of body contact pressure effective for bedsore prevention can be realized.2. Change of body postureThis bed can carry a human lying on the bed at a speed of 2.5mm/s. Then, we have tried to realize a lateral position of 30 degree effective for bedsore prevention by means of changing the carrying direction lengthwise and crosswise of each part of the bed divided into three along longitudinal direction. In experiments, body contact pressure distributions at the shoulder and waist were measure with a pneumatic soft tactile sensor originally developed in our laboratory. The obtained body contact pressure distributions are almost equivalent to one of the lateral position of 30 degree. This result shows the applicability of the bed to the assist for change of body posture work.The study has proved the availability of the developed bed to both the dispersion of body contact pressure and the change of body posture work effective to prevent a bedsore. Less