Feature
MORE THAN SKIN DEEP Billions of pounds are ploughed into treating problems created by life-supporting and essential devices every year. There’s a real juxtaposition between hospital devices supporting life but also causing chronic skin damage and scarring. It’s an issue that a multidisciplinary team from Health Sciences and Engineering is tackling, bringing benefits to both patients and purses. Through addressing device design, materials and patient monitoring, the Skin Health Group is pioneering new methods that could change the lives of people living with the long-lasting effects of pressure ulcers and scarring. The team from Health Sciences, comprising Professor Dan Bader, Professor Lisette Schoonhoven and Dr Peter Worsley, led the EPSRC-NIHR funded Medical Device and Vulnerable Skin Network from 2014 to 2019. This brought together academics, industry and clinicians to address two key challenges: optimising medical device designs and creating intelligent monitoring to promote self-management. Peter, Associate Professor within Health Sciences, explained: “Pressure ulcers have traditionally been associated with people who are relatively immobile, but there is also a problem with skin damage resulting from using medical devices. Over one third of hospitalacquired pressure ulcers are caused by devices such as ventilation masks, support collars and prosthetics – anything that touches the skin. These devices are mostly generic in design and use stiff, non-breathable material that can be detrimental to skin health.” Technology for healthy skin The team, based in a Clinical Academic Facility on the hospital site, has partnered with Engineering colleagues Professor Liudi Jiang and Dr Alex Dickinson to address a range of
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healthcare issues. They have a number of projects addressing skin health, for example for individuals using prosthetic and orthotics. Alex, Associate Professor in the Bioengineering Science Research Group, said: “We are lucky to have a close relationship with Health Sciences. Our biomechanical modelling and simulation tools are clever but useless if they aren’t designed with clinical issues in mind, and trained with clinical data. Peter’s unique clinical and bioengineering experience is key to this multidisciplinary collaboration, and means our students and researchers have exposure to the full range of stakeholders in the care pathway, enhancing their experience, and ensuring our work is valuable to patients.” Peter outlined the cost to the NHS and to patients themselves: “Chronic wounds, many of which are pressure ulcers, cost the NHS £5 billion a year. There is significant impact from having these types of wounds. Often wounds from medical devices can occur on the face or neck, such as skin damage forming on the bridge of the nose from a respiratory mask. These painful wounds diminish the individual’s quality of life and can cause social consequences when long term scarring is present. And now, with COVID-19 patients, there are a lot of issues with patients lying in a prone position for a long time and even with healthcare professionals getting skin damage from personal protective equipment.”
Breathing tubes can leave neonatal babies with longterm facial scarring
