Sand Bed Nursing

Summary

This paper describes the objectives and methods defined by over five years’ experience of the use in medical, surgical and orthopaedic wards of six beds on which the mattresses had been replaced by a tray of sand. During this period no patient has developed a bed sore while being nursed on a sand tray, despite the fact that a considered high risk of decubitus ulceration was the usual indication for the prescription of this form of patient support. It has also been found possible to reduce the nursing movement of even paralysed patients to that required for other biological functions such as feeding, collection of excreta, postural drainage or physiotherapy. A prototype air-fluidised sand bed has been in intermittent use for three years. This provides automatic accommodation of the sand surface to the patient’s contours and obviates the necessity to make manual impressions in static sand trays for paralysed patients. Further study is being made of the observation that patients admitted with acute backache frequently appear to experience dramatically rapid relief. The absence of any case of deep venous thrombosis from the series also requires evaluation of the possibly beneficial effects of avoiding localised calf pressure.