The pressure technology has brought a lot of changes to many areas.

It has been
used in industrial applications such as oil filtration and measuring atmospheric
pressure. This technology has also been used in making of bed pressure sensors.
This is a form of monitoring system for infants, children, the disabled and eve
n the elderly. It is a wireless technology that has helped improve the quality o
f life of the affected people and their families. It monitors a person s routine. Us
ing such information, the sensor can notify a family member or a caregiver about
the deviation of the concerned person from routine. If the person falls, the ca
regiver is informed of the change in bed pressure. They can then take appropriat
e measures. The alert can be informed of a text message or a mobile application
through which such alerts are received.
In the past before the invention of such technology, caregivers always had to ke
ep on going to check on the person concerned to ensure that they have not fallen
from bed. An example is a baby who is sleeping. The nurse has to regularly go b
ack to the child s bedroom and ensure that the child has not fallen. This is not onl
y tiresome and also very time-consuming. It is considered tedious. The bed press
ure technology has come as a way to relief the nurses and loved ones of these ti
ring tasks. It makes work easier and ensures that the nurse is always informed i
f the child is still in bed. The technology can also be used in monitoring the e
lderly in their homes. It can also be used in hospitals to monitor patients. Man
y types of research have been carried out to check if this is very viable.
A study was conducted aimed at checking the effectiveness of the device at infor
ming nurses about periods when a person leaves a bed. It also aimed at proving n
ew information about how the device can be used. The study tried to check if the
device would serve any help at reducing the workload of nurses. It used about 1
56 patients and 30 nurses over a period of 2 months. The sensor was put under th
e bed of the patients involved over the period they were in the hospital. The st
udy discovered that the device had an effectiveness of about 70%. It was observe
d to have reduced the workload of nurses. Over 80% of the nurses found the devic
e useful for the prevention of falls. They also confirmed that they would use it
in future. The limitation of the study was the fact that the study period was s
hort and thus did not allow for more research time.
Another study aimed at investigating whether bed pressure sensors decreased bed
falls and other events were conducted in a certain hospital were conducted. The
study involved 350 bed and about 16 nurses. The study was conducted for 18 month
s. The recording involved in-patients who were to go through surgeries. The numb
er of patients who fell was recorded and the results compared with falls before
the installation of the device. It was discovered that 65% of the people involve
d preferred the use of the bed pressure sensor. The number of patients who fell
did not change. The study was conducted in only a single hospital, and thus this
was a limitation in the geographical coverage.
In yet another study aimed at checking the effect of hourly rounds by nurses on
patients, satisfaction discovered that the use of only hourly round was not enou
gh to make patients satisfied. This study was conducted over a time span of 5 ye
ars and also involved in house patients. It discovered that something else was n
eeded besides just hourly checks to ensure that patients were completely satisfi
ed with the work of nurses. It was used to monitor the effectiveness of nurse ad
ministration. The major problem the study faced was that there was a tendency to
lean towards the poor results so as to prove that hourly nursing checks were no
t satisfactory.
The research was conducted with the aim of educating nurses about the hourly rou
nding controls. The time for the study was to be between morning hours of 6 am t
o late in the night at around 2200 hours. The training was aimed at reducing red
undancy inpatient exists and making them participants in the prevention of bed f
alls. The study discovered that there was still bed falls despite the training c
onducted on nurses and how to improve patients checks. It was limited by the fact t
hat it was performed over a very short period which was only 30 days. Over this
period the study discovered that the hourly checks were sufficient but more stud
ies were needed over a longer period.
From the above studies and researches it can be seen that despite the efforts ma
de to improve hourly nursing rounds through things such as training, bed pressur
e sensors are still more useful. The technology has revolutionized the monitorin
g of patients by nurses and loved ones by their family members. All researchers
that used the bed pressure technology had an over 60 % support for the technolog
y. This shows that bed pressure sensors are more efficient as compared to checks
by the nurse over every hour.