SMART MOVE FOR THE IMMOBILE
Students’ invention can flip people on to both sides of their bodies, allows easy cleaning and measures their vital signs
University students build smart bed to ease life for those caring for paralysed patients,
AJMAN // Four electrical engineering students have designed a smart bed for disabled people.
The Ajman University of Science and Technology students identified the needs of paralysed patients, came up with the bed idea and decided to make it their senior project.
They included four essential features for the bed: a manual and automatic controller to ease patients onto both sides of their bodies ; sensors to measure vital signs; a part that detaches to allow nurses to clean patients without moving them, and a camera that allows a nurse or family members to monitor the patients using a mobile app. “We wanted an innovation that can specifically help those with special needs,” said Palestinian Ahmed Hamdan, 23. “We came up with plenty of ideas and then I remembered that my mother’s friend is paralysed and needs someone to move her every few hours to her right and left sides.
“Also, I know that old people who are unable to walk and move need a person to flip them all day and night to avoid skin irritation, and the person in any family who does that the most is the patient’s daughter.”
The students – including Pal- estinian Abdulrahman Azam, 21, Syrian Mohammed Atfa, 21, and Jordanian Mohammed Nofal, 21 – did a lot of research before building the bed. They asked doctors about what to avoid, what size the bed should be and how often paralysed patients needed to be moved.
They also got a company to produce the bed before they added the technological features. It is two metres by one metre and cost Dh21,000 to make.
“We used metal instead of aluminium because the cost of metal is lower and we are now working on programming the software,” said Mr Nofal.
The bed’s built- in software will be operated with an app that allows the carer to press a button to turn the patient over or even set up specific times for the bed to do so itself.
The bed also has a sensor that raises an alarm if the patient gets into difficulty.
“This is our senior project and we chose to do something that is a beneficial and unique invention for the community,” Mr Hamdan said of the bed, which is on display at the Innovation Centre of Ajman University.
“We are definitely looking to market it and make it available for all paralysed patients because we created it for them.”