17 Hospital Room Design for Fall Prevention Experiments in Elderly Patients

Faculty Mentor: Haohan Zhang (Mechanical Engineering, University of Utah)

Background

Falls are common in elderly residents, which can lead to disabling consequences. This SPUR project is part of a bigger study where we aim to determine and optimal configuration of hospital rooms that can reduce risks of falls through biomechanical observations. In an earlier study, the research team has identified multiple design factors, including the door type of the bathroom (i.e., swing vs slide) and its orientation relative to the bed.

Objective

To accommodate this study, in this project, our objective is to design an easy-to-configure mock bathroom to carry out the experimental trials with minimal
downtime. The design must also fit within the physical space of the laboratory. This room must allow visibility for the motion capture cameras.

Methods

Using SOLIDWORKS we designed this mock bathroom to be able to accurately accommodate the multiple bathroom, and room configurations with minimal downtime between setups. Our design allowed us to change which doors are in operation and which way the swing door opens to cover a wider array of hospital room layouts. We designed the room using inexpensive, off-the-shelf components. The frame of the design is mounted on casters which allows for easy reconfiguration when unlocked while providing a stable structure when locked.

Results and Deliverables

A physical mock bathroom with modular doors is built within the laboratory space for the planned experiments. A step-by-step instruction
manual for building the room and how to change its configurations is provided.

Acknowledgements: We acknowledge that this work was partially funded by AHRQ (award no. 5R18HS025606-05, PI: Bob Wong). We thank for the great insights obtained from discussions with the research team (Bob Wong, Ellen Taylor, K. Bo Foreman, Alan Kuntz, Edoardo Battaglia, Peter Fino, and Nooshin Seddighi)