Optimizing Pressure in Compressive Textiles and Utilizing Smart Sensors to Monitor Patient Recovery

Abstract

This study was designed to examine how to better monitor patients throughout compression therapy. Compressive wraps are used to optimize blood flow in patients in order to encourage proper healing and decrease the likelihood of medical complications. The pressure being applied by the wrap determines its effectiveness, so it would be ideal if this could be monitored real-time. New advancements in smart sensors may allow for this to occur. Until then, it would be useful to have tables of elongation versus pressure, so that doctors and nurses have a reference that can be used to estimate the pressure being applied to the wound. Temperature and moisture sensing were also considered, since they could be used to monitor patient temperature and potentially sense fluid build-up. Skin temperature sensing was found to be possible using the SensorPush Temperature and Humidity Sensor. A table has been fabricated using tensile test data that shows the acceptable range of percent elongations for each tested compressive wrap. It was determined that stress relaxation is prevalent in compressive wraps, and this must be taken into consideration in future testing.