Legs Matter Week 2020
The first week of June is Legs Matter Week. A week committed to increasing the overall awareness of leg and feet conditions and in doing so improving the overall quality of leg and foot care that people receive on a regular basis. Poor leg or foot health can have a significant impact on a person’s daily life, making it difficult and painful to stand up, walk or go to sleep. This can also greatly affect the mental and emotional health of the person from having severe mobility limitations; they could be unable to leave their home or even navigate it freely, having to be dependent on the assistance of carers to accomplish basic daily tasks.
Centrobed have several specialist beds and products that can provide a high quality of leg care and improve the overall physical and mental health of the client and their carer.
One of our brand new beds, the Delaware has all the functions found in a standard profiling bed: 4 section profiling and high/low. The Delaware‘s kneebreak is designed specifically to provide as many leg positions as possible; this kneebreak can allow the user to raise their legs significantly above the standard flat default setting as well as lower the legs into a sitting position.
Finally, the Delaware can also help bring a person’s heels down with the end section being able to drop down into a negative position down to a low of 10 inches. These functions help facilitate a more comfortable experience for someone with such as contracted legs or Muscular Dystrophy contractures when sleeping in bed and make it significantly easier to transfer in and out of bed with minimal to no assistance from others, improving independence and reducing the need for manual handling.
For assisting people in getting their legs in and out of bed, the Nile leg lifter can securely attach onto a wide range of beds with a range of different-sized brackets to choose from. The Nile will smoothly lift a person’s legs above the level of the mattress making it significantly easier for a person with leg conditions to move and get safely into bed without assistance. The Nile is easy to understand and use; operated with a simple 2-button handset, it only requires one button press to raise the legs into bed and a second button to lower the legs out of bed. The Nile is possum compatible and has a standard weight limit of 25 stone with a bariatric version available that can lift up to 50 stone.
As well as being one of the most versatile specialist beds available, the Arctic turning bed also has independent leg profiling allowing each leg to be profiled individually facilitating greater specialized care and more profiling possibilities. For clients with conditions such as Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, having a comfortable night’s sleep can be difficult without the assistance of others, when lying in bed, their legs can frequently roll out putting significant pressure and strain on their thighs and groin.
People may need to rely on the help of other carers to hold their legs in place to avoid this strain on their groin and legs, this will put the carers themselves at risk especially should this task be continued regularly for a long period of time. For reducing pressure ulcers and sores on the legs, the Arctic can have automated turning that gradually turns the person at night, helping redistribute the pressure on the body, reducing the ulcers and preventing any from occurring in the future.
For reducing the risk of strain or injury in medical staff and nurses, the Arabian Bandaging Stool improves access and significantly decreases the physical challenges nurses face when treating and bandaging heavy and swollen legs due to conditions such as Lymphoedema. When treating large legs with excess skin, nurses have to put their bodies and backs under great strain to lift and keep each leg in position to treat and bandage. This entire process of supporting the leg, cleaning the leg then finally bandaging the leg with a maximum of up to 4 layers can take 2 nurses and over 2 hours to finish. The Arabian Bandaging Stool has horizontal actuator driven pads enabling support and easy access for nurses to treat the whole circumference of the leg, decreasing the task from needing 2 nurses to 1, requiring less time to complete and minimizing the risk of injury.
