Support surface is any material, such as a mattress, that supports people who are bed-ridden through illness. Research and development of appropriate support surfaces can alleviate some of the complications of immobility, such as bedsores and respiratory problems.
The National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel's (NPUAP) Support Surface Standards Initiative (S3I) has released the first version of its Terms and Definitions Document. This set of definitions is provided in an attempt to redefine commonly used and confused terms. The terms describe support surface features, components, categories, and performance characteristics.
The Terms and Definitions Document and an evaluation form can be found at NPUAP`s site
Read more about Support Surface: Problems of Immobility, Traditional Methods of Dealing With Immobility
Famous quotes containing the words support and/or surface:
“The community and family networks which helped sustain earlier generations have become scarcer for growing numbers of young parents. Those who lack links to these traditional sources of support are hard-pressed to find other resources, given the emphasis in our society on providing treatment services, rather than preventive services and support for health maintenance and well-being.”
—Bernice Weissbourd (20th century)
“All beauties contain, like all possible phenomena, something eternal and something transitory,—something absolute and something particular. Absolute and eternal beauty does not exist, or rather it is only an abstraction skimmed from the common surface of different sorts of beauty. The particular element of each beauty comes from the emotions, and as we each have our own particular emotions, so we have our beauty.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)