An innovative CPR mattress
July 11, 2009 by Liz Lewis
Filed under First Aid, Heart Health, Medicine
Hospital mattresses are soft and pliable. Great for the patient who wants to be comfortable. But not so great for medical staff if they have to perform CPR.
Michigan Technology University
Performing compressions on someone lying in a soft and pliable mattress will only result in the force going into the mattress and not the body. The standard answer is to get the patient on a crash board first but that requires extra time to roll the patient and position the board. Extra time that is often critical.
But a group of innovative students at Michigan Tech may just have the answer. They have been developing a mattress that will allow faster and more effective cardiopulmonary resusciation (CPR).
The idea: Suck the air out of the foam in the mattress and make it firm
The means: some tubing, a little motor, and a vacuum pump.
The results: the CPR load (or force) that is applied to the heart increases to 81 percent with the Tech students mattress (as compared to 43 percent for standard mattress and 52 percent for standard mattress and crash board)
It’s a design that could save lives in a heartbeat.
