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:
“Every winter the liquid and trembling surface of the pond, which was so sensitive to every breath, and reflected every light and shadow, becomes solid to the depth of a foot or a foot and a half, so that it will support the heaviest teams, and perchance the snow covers it to an equal depth, and it is not to be distinguished from any level field. Like the marmots in the surrounding hills, it closes its eyelids and becomes dormant for three months or more.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“All forms of beauty, like all possible phenomena, contain an element of the eternal and an element of the transitory—of the absolute and of the particular. Absolute and eternal beauty does not exist, or rather it is only an abstraction creamed from the general surface of different beauties. The particular element in each manifestation comes from the emotions: and just as we have our own particular emotions, so we have our own beauty.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)