Patient Safety Control System for Dynamic Movement Restraint
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing restraining devices in healthcare settings often fail to distinguish between dangerous and harmless patient movements, leading to either total immobilization or inadequate protection, which can cause stress and additional medical issues for patients.
Innovation Solution
A system that uses machine logic to detect events where a patient's body part is moving close to a risk point in the environment, allowing for controlled movement adjustments to prevent harm, while allowing for free movement unless a risk is detected.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If restraining devices are used to control patient movement, then patient safety is improved, but patient stress and medical complications increase
Solution Approach 1:
The restraint system transitions from a static, always-active constraint to a dynamic system that continuously monitors patient movement and applies restraint only when necessary. Sensors detect patient position and movement patterns, allowing the system to adaptively activate or deactivate restraint mechanisms based on real-time conditions, thereby maintaining safety while reducing unnecessary stress on the patient.
Solution Approach 2:
The system incorporates continuous feedback loops where sensors monitor patient movement and provide data to the control system, which then adjusts restraint application accordingly. This feedback mechanism enables the system to distinguish between harmful movements requiring intervention and benign movements that should remain unrestricted, optimizing both safety and patient comfort.
2Reliability
If restraining devices are used to prevent harmful movements, then patient safety is improved, but patient mobility and freedom of movement deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The restraint system is divided into multiple independent sensor zones and actuator segments distributed throughout the patient environment. Each segment independently monitors and responds to specific movement types, allowing selective restraint of only those movements that pose safety risks while leaving other movements unrestricted, thereby preserving patient mobility wherever possible.
Solution Approach 2:
The system applies different levels of restraint control to different body parts and movement types based on local risk assessment. Rather than uniform immobilization, the system tailors restraint intensity and activation thresholds to specific anatomical regions and movement patterns, restricting only those movements that could cause harm while allowing free movement in safe zones.
3Reliability
If traditional restraining devices are used, then harmful movements are prevented, but the system cannot distinguish between dangerous and harmless movements
Solution Approach 1:
The system adds multiple detection dimensions beyond simple proximity sensing, including temporal patterns of movement, force magnitude, direction vectors, and sequence of movements. By analyzing movements across these additional dimensions, the system can distinguish between harmful and harmless actions even when they occur in similar spatial locations, preserving crucial contextual information that traditional single-dimension systems lose.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary analysis of movement patterns and establishes baseline profiles of normal versus dangerous movements before critical incidents occur. By pre-programming recognition of harmful movement signatures and learning normal patient behavior patterns, the system can differentiate between benign and dangerous movements in real-time, preventing false positives and unnecessary restraint activation.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods, computer program products, and systems are presented. The methods, computer program products, and systems can include, for instance: detecting, by machine logic, an event in a patient environment, wherein the event includes a body part of a patient moving to a location within a threshold distance of a point of interest, the point of interest being a location in the patient environment which if subject to contact by the body part poses risk to the patient; determining, by machine logic, one or more action to perform to control movement of the body part in response to the detecting the event in the patient environment; performing the one or more action to control movement of the body part in response to the detecting the event in the patient environment.