Prevalence of Sensor Saturation in Wheelchair Seat Interface Pressure Mapping

Pressure mapping is a frequently used tool with great power to provide information about the forces between a patient and a wheelchair seat. One widely recognized limitation to this paradigm is the possibility of data loss due to sensor saturation. In this study, we seek to quantify and describe the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Assistive technology 2015-04, Vol.27 (2), p.69-75
Main Authors: Wininger, Michael, Crane, Barbara A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Biomechanical Phenomena
Equipment Design
Equipment Failure Analysis
Female
Health technology assessment
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Pressure
pressure mapping
pressure ulcer
Pressure Ulcer - prevention & control
Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted
Wheelchairs
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Summary:Pressure mapping is a frequently used tool with great power to provide information about the forces between a patient and a wheelchair seat. One widely recognized limitation to this paradigm is the possibility of data loss due to sensor saturation. In this study, we seek to quantify and describe the saturation observed in the measurement of interface pressures of wheelchair users. We recorded approximately two minutes of interface pressure data from 22 elderly wheelchair users (11M/11F, 80 ± 10 years) and found that 4.7% of data frames had 1 saturated sensor, and 9.0% had more than one saturated sensor, for a total of 13.7% of all frames of data. Data from three of the 22 subjects (13.6%) were substantially affected by the persistent presence of saturated sensors. We conclude that for this population of elderly wheelchair users, sensor saturation may be a concern and should be factored properly into study design a priori.
ISSN:1040-0435
1949-3614
DOI:10.1080/10400435.2014.976800