Patent Application
20180344048
The present invention relates to an air mattress with a plurality of air cells extending to the bed width direction and being arranged in parallel in the bed longitudinal direction, in particular relates to an air mattress having inflating and deflating functions that prevents the bed user from getting bedsores and others by alternately inflating and deflating the plurality of air cells.
An air mattress is a mattress that has a plurality of air cells extending to the bed width direction and being arranged in parallel in the bed longitudinal direction and is provided with cushioning properties by supplying the art to each air cell and inflating and inflating each air cell (Patent Document 1). There has been a kind of air mattress which is controlled so that the air cells are alternately inflated and deflated one to another. This configuration makes it possible to effectively prevent the bed user from getting bedsores compared to the case where the bed user is lying on the air mattress continuously. In this alternate inflation and deflation, for a plurality of the air cells, every third cell, for example, is repeatedly contracted and expanded at the same timing. That is, for the air cells arranged in the bed longitudinal direction, from all the air cells being inflated, the first air cell, fourth air cell, seventh air cell, . . . are deflated (air-discharged) by reducing the pressure in these cells, then these cells are pressurized (air-supplied) and returned to the expanded state. Subsequently, the second air cell, fifth air cell, eighth air cell, . . . are deflated by reducing the pressure, then these cells are returned to the expanded state by increasing the pressure in these cells. Then, the third air cell, sixth air cell, ninth air cell are placed under the same pressure control. Thereafter, the first and other associated air cells are implemented with same pressure control. Thus, the pressure of the air cells is controlled in this way to alternately inflate and deflate the air cells, whereby it is possible to prevent the bed user from getting bedsores and others.
On the other hand, diaphragm type pumps are usually used to supply and discharge air for air cells. In the diaphragm type pump, the diaphragm is moved reciprocatedly by reciprocate drive of the diaphragm by means of a linear motor for making linear motion, to thereby supply air to the air cells and discharge air from the air cells.
Patent Document 1:
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open 2014-46043
Incidentally, when this air mattress is initially operated or when restarted after maintenance, it is necessary to supply the air into all the cells from the pressureless state until the pressure of all the air cells is raised to a predetermined level to inflate the air mattress. On this occasion, there is a demand at the initial operation or at the restart operation that the air pressure should be raised from zero to the predetermined level as soon as possible. For example, when a patient is hospitalized, the air mattress is inflated by supplying air into all the cells so that the pressure of each air cell is raised to a predetermined level. That is, when a patient is admitted to hospital, the nurse needs to receive the patient, but has to perform the work of pumping air into all the cells of the mattress by providing preparatory period in advance before the reception. Conventionally, it took about 30 minutes to make preparations or inflate all the air cells up to the predetermined pressure level from a state of pressureless. That is, the nurses could not accept the patient until a lapse of the time for preparation. This was a wasteful waiting time for nurses. In order to avoid this, a high-capacity supplying and discharging pump is provided separately in addition to the supplying and discharging pump for use in normal situation and it is necessary by this high-capacity pump to supply air to the air mattress to thereby make the air mattress available at the time of initial operation or at the time of restart operation. This poses problems of cost increase and complexity in operation.
Further, when the air cells are alternately inflated and deflated in order to prevent the patient lying on the air mattress from getting bedsores as mentioned above, a motorized diaphragm type pump is needed to perform air-supply to and air-discharge from the air cells. Since driving the diaphragm type pump gives off noise, there is a case that the driving sound of this pump becomes hard on the ears for some patient lying on the mattress.
Further, considered as an opportunity when the air pressure of the air mattress is adjusted is an occasion when, in a gatch bed capable of back-tilting operation for raising and lowering the back bottom, pressure control of the air mattress is performed so as to increase the pressure of, for example, only the cells around the buttocks in order to prevent the bed user's body from sinking into the air mattress due to local application of the user weight to the air mattress at the time of back raising. In contrast, at the time of back lowering operation, the pressure of the pressurized air cells around the buttocks is lowered to be as low as the air cells of the other part. At the time of back-raising and back-lowering operations of the gatch bed, the bed user may be offended by the operating sound of the motor-driven diaphragm type pump.
The present invention has been devised in view of the above problems, it is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an air mattress having inflating and deflating functions, which can achieve speedy pressure adjustment and alleviate an unpleasant feeling of the bed user as result of pump operation noise at the time of pressure adjustment.
An air mattress having inflating and deflating functions according to the present invention includes:
Another air mattress having inflating and deflating functions according to the present invention includes:
Still another air mattress having inflating and deflating functions according to the present invention includes:
In these air mattresses having inflating and deflating functions, for example, the air mattress is set on a plurality of bottoms including a back bottom and is used to a gatch bed performing a back raising operation for raising the back bottom, and,
Further, for example, the air cells arranged in a longitudinal end on a leg side may be sized shorter with respect to the bed width direction than those in the other part while the air supply/discharge pump may be mounted in a space on the bed between the short-sized air cells and the bed side edge where no air cells occupy.
According to the present invention, when the air supply/discharge pump needs to supply a large amount of air into the air cells such as when the air mattress is initially operated or restarted after maintenance (the first mode) , the controller drives the air supply/discharge pump at the first power output close to its maximum capacity. For example, when in the normal operation mode to actuate alternate inflation and deflation, the bed user is lying on the bed (the second mode) , the controller drives the air supply/discharge pump at the second power output lower than the first power output. In this way, since the air supply/discharge pump is driven at the first power output close to the maximum capacity in the first mode, the air cells can be inflated quickly so as to enable rapid preparation. In this case, since the air supply/discharge pump operates at nearly the maximum capacity, the pump gives off high-level operation noise. On the other hand, in the second mode, since the controller operates the air supply/discharge pump at the second power output that is lower than the first power output, the operating sound of the air supply/discharge pump is low so that the noise will not make the bed user lying on the bed uncomfortable. In particular, for example, when the air supply/discharge pump is arranged near the leg section on the bed, the operation sound of the air supply/discharge pump at normal alternate inflation and deflation would make the bed user (the patient and the like lying on the bed) uncomfortable. However, the present invention has an advantage of not producing such an uncomfortable feeling.
Now, the embodiment of the present invention will be specifically described with reference to the accompanying drawings.
The gatch bed is an electric bed in which the piston rods at the front ends of actuators 4b are moved forward or backward by the operation of the electric bed hand-switch 4c so as to move individual bed linking mechanisms coupled to the front ends of the piston rods and thereby electrically actuate each bottom for back-raising or back-lowering operation. For example, the piston rod of actuator 4b is provided with a strain gauge as an external sensor (not shown) so as to be able to detect the load applied on the piston rod via the bottom of the electric bed. It is also possible to detect the load applied on the piston rod by being detected the required current for driving the actuator 4b by control circuit 4a. The electric bed also includes an external sensor (not shown) for detecting the tilt angle of the back bottom for performing back-raising operation. Herein, the electric bed may also be configured to be able to raise the knee bottom at the same time, not limited to the back bottom alone. Also in this case, the strain gauge that is provided for the piston rod of actuator 4b coupled to the linking mechanism of the knee bottom can measure the load applied to the knee bottom, in addition, a sensor for detecting the tilt angle of the knee bottom can also be provided.
Placed on these bottoms 1a to 1f is the air mattress 2. As shown in
All the air cells 3 of head section 10a, shoulder section 10b, back section 10c, buttock section 10d, thigh section 10e, thigh section 10e and knee section 10f extend to the full width of the bed, whereas the air cells 3 of leg section 10g similarly extend to the bed longitudinal direction but the length is shorter than that of air cells 3 in the other sections. Arranged on the bed between the air cells 3 in this leg section 10g and the side edge of the bed is an air supply/discharge pump 11. This air supply/discharge pump 11 is connected to a mattress control circuit 15, to which a mattress handswitch 16 is connected.
The length of air cells 3 in the leg section 10g is shorter by 30% or less than that of the other air cells 3. That is, in the assembly of the plurality of bag-like cells so as to be arranged in rectangular as a whole when viewed from the top, there is a space without any bag-like cells 3 at one of the four corners, on the side where the heels of the person lying on the mattress are positioned. Air supply/discharge pump 11 is laid out in this space with no bag-like cells 3, in such a manner that, for example, the longitudinal direction of the pump is extended perpendicularly to the longitudinal direction of each bag-like cell 3, or is extended to the direction from the head toward the legs of the person lying on the mattress. In this way, the air supply/discharge pump 11 is arranged at the corner corresponding to the heels of the person lying on the mattress of the four corners of the air mattress 2 that is formed in a rectangular shape as a whole when viewed from the top. This space corresponding to the side of the heels is an area where the body of air-mattress user is unlikely to touch even when he/she tosses about in bed, hence will not offend feeling in bed. Arranging the air supply/discharge pump 11 within the area defined by the length and the width of the air mattress 2 formed of the plurality of air cells 3 makes it unnecessary to mount the pump 11 outside the air mattress 2 and makes it easy to handle. When the height of the air supply/discharge pump 11 is, for example, equal to or lower than the height of the bag-like cell of each air cell group 10, the air supply/discharge pump 11 having a higher hardness than the fully inflated bag-like air cell will be prevented from projecting above the height of air cells 3, hence, for example, in the air mattress 2 set on a bed having side rails, it is possible to prevent the person lying on the air mattress 2 from being positioned higher than the side rails. The air supply/discharge pump 11 is formed with its outer surface covered by a soft material such as urethane or the like, for example, so as to alleviate impacts when the person on the air mattress 2, the caregiver and others come into contact with the air supply/discharge pump 11 as well as to provide a protecting function of the air supply/discharge pump 11.
As shown in
In the present embodiment, the air supply/discharge pump 11 has such a capability of supplying air to air cells 3 as to inflate all the air cells 3 from the condition where all the air cells 3 are pressureless to the condition where all the cells 3 are inflated to the maximum pressure within a predetermined time. The case where all the cells are pressureless corresponds to, for example, when the air mattress is initially operated or when the air mattress is restarted to operate after maintenance. The predetermined time is the time in which all the air cells 3 are charged with air and inflated until the air mattress 2 can be used. This predetermined time is the time during which the nurse or the like who performs inflating operation is able to wait when the air mattress 2 is initially operated or when it is restarted. If this time is too long, the nurse needs to wait idly in preparing the hospitalization of a patient. Therefore, this waiting time should be made as short as possible. If this waiting time is short, all the air cells 3 of the air mattress 2 can be inflated so that the air mattress 2 can be used while the nurse is explaining other matters required for hospitalization to the patient to be hospitalized. As a result, the patient can use the air mattress 2 immediately after explanation of hospitalization matters from the nurse, and the nurse can set out the next work immediately after the explanation of the hospitalization matters to the patient.
Specifically, air supply/discharge pump 11 is driven at a.c. 100V so as to supply air to air cells 3 at a discharge rate of 14 to 17 Nlit./min. In this way, when air cells 3 are inflated from their pressureless state to the normal use state, the pump 11 is set at a first power output close to its maximum capacity so as to inflate all the air cells 3 as soon as possible.
On the other hand, when a patient or a bed user is lying on the bed and the air mattress 2 is in a normal usage condition, there is a case where the air cells 3 are inflated and deflated alternately in order to prevent the patient from getting bedsores. This alternate inflation and deflation means an operation in which, in the air mattress 2 with the plurality of air cells 3 arranged in parallel from the head section 10a side to the leg section 10g side as shown in
Meanwhile, in the gatch bed shown in
Next, the operation of the present embodiment thus configured will be described. When a large amount of air is supplied into many air cells 3 such as when the air mattress 2 is initially operated or restarted after maintenance, the air supply/discharge pump 11 is driven with the first power output that gives nearly the maximum drive capacity, in order to inflate the air cells 3 as soon as possible. Though at this time the air supply/discharge pump 11 gives off a relatively high operation sound, it does not matter in terms of noise because no patient is lying on the bed. Since the air supply/discharge pump 11 is operated at the driving force close to the maximum capacity, all the air cells 3 can be inflated rapidly, hence making it possible to reduce burden on the nurse. On the other hand, when, at the time of normal operation mode in which the bed user is lying on the bed, the air supply/discharge pump 11 needs to be driven to perform alternate inflation and deflation or prevention against bottom touch, the air supply/discharge pump 11 is driven with the second or third power output lower than the first power output. Thus, it is possible to prevent the bed user from being offended by the noise caused by the driving sound at driving the air supply/discharge pump 11. Since air supply and discharge in the normal operation mode is performed not for all the air cells 3 but for part of the air cells, and since the inflating and deflating rates at this mode need not to be necessarily high, it does not matter in view of operation if the driving force of the air supply/discharge pump 11 is set low.
Though in the present embodiment three-level power control comprising the first power output, second power output and third power output is used as described above, the invention should not be limited to this. It is of course possible to use two-level power control of the first power output and the second power output lower than the former, or use power control comprising four levels or more on one hand. As the other cases where high power or the first power output is set up, on the occasions when the entire air mattress is wanted to be increased in pressure such as when the patient undergoes rehabilitation on the bed, when the patient sits at the edge of the bed and when back raising is operated in the gatch bed, the pump is set up at the first power output that is the high power close to the maximum pumping capacity.
With the air mattress having inflating and deflating functions, it is possible to achieve rapid pressure adjustment and alleviate bed user's uncomfortable sensation due to operation sound of the pump when pressure adjustment is performed, hence enhance the usability of the mattress of this kind.
1
a to 1f: bottoms
2: air mattress
3: air cell
11: air supply/discharge pump
15: mattress control circuit
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-141170 | Jul 2014 | JP | national |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 15324703 | Jan 2017 | US |
| Child | 16057942 | US |
