What is it about?
When higher hospital bed heights are used for patient boosting tasks, low back forces are reduced. This can potentially have a positive impact on those who work in healthcare and deal with high levels of patient handling and low back injuries. Try to ensure the hospital bed is at least 50% of the healthcare worker's height.
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Photo by Martha Dominguez de Gouveia on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Low back injuries are rampant among healthcare workers. Raising the hospital bed height is an easy alternative to typical patient handling that can reduce the repetitive load on the low back.
Perspectives
As a healthcare worker who has experienced a low back injury, this technique has anecdotally saved my back from increased stress and has prevented re-injury, and this research quantifies one effect of raising the hospital bed.
Robert Larson
Texas Tech University System
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The influence of bed height as a percentage of participant height on low back forces when boosting a patient up in bed, Work, August 2023, IOS Press,
DOI: 10.3233/wor-220260.
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