Proning Bed for the Intensive Care Unit

Abstract

Acute respiratory distress syndrome is a severe lung dysfunction that requires treatment involving a technique known as pronation therapy. Medical studies and practice have shown this therapy to be beneficial in patient recovery. Unfortunately, the procedure introduces risks for both the patient and nursing staff. Various devices currently available in the market are largely cumbersome, expensive, and inadequate. As a result, the University of Michigan Hospital uses a manual proning process. This requires demanding tasks from a well trained nursing staff. Also, in smaller hospitals, many patients are denied pronation due to the lack of financial resources and staffing experience. The objective of this project is to design and prototype a device that will facilitate the proning process. This can be achieved by making the process safer for the patient, or by making the process easier for the nursing staff without compromising patient safety. Our work on this project is complete, but further design modifications and testing are necessary to market the product.