Covid-19, ergonomic wheelchair design for patient transfer in intensive care units

Abstract

Introduction. The coronavirus attacked the population of the world, complicating in a special way the logistics of transferring patients in designated hospitals that received patients in intensive care units and that did not have adequate ergonomic means of mobility, which generated discomfort and even accidents. Objective. Design an ergonomic wheelchair for a group of registered patients using anthropometry in an intensive care unit of a public hospital in the city of Ambato.

Methods. This study began with the collection of anthropometric data taken from a group of 100 patients who occupied the facilities of the Ambato Regional Teaching Hospital in the intensive care Unit and needed a wheelchair transfer for: assessment, diagnosis, application of analgesia and vasoactive sedatives, and central venous catheter placement. Next, design anthropometry was used to choose the main groups of the ergonomic wheelchair and finally the percentiles per section were calculated until the appropriate ergonomic dimensions of each part of the designed equipment were obtained. Results. After tabulating the data from a population of 100 patients, for 7 anthropometric dimensions chosen according to the recommended elements of interior spaces and the design of the ergonomic chair, the following dimensions were chosen: floor-popliteal 42.13 cm, knee- buttock 50.94 cm, shoulder width 49.87 cm, seat-back 52.70 cm, floor-elbow 70.06 cm, floor flexed arm 49.39 cm, back-foot 75.11 cm, Conclusion. An ergonomic wheelchair was calculated and designed by taking the anthropometric distances of a group of 100 Covid-19 patients.