2020 Volume 69 Issue 4 Pages 596-601
Even when no change in the skin surface is recognized, sonography and thermography can sensitively detect changes in the structures of areas under the skin. Once a week, we performed sonography and thermography of the sacrum and right and left greater trochanter parts and the right and left heels of patients suspected of being at risk of bedsore. We compared the revised echo score system that we originally devised, and we also compared the temperature difference between the normal and abnormal parts measured by thermography. We investigated whether these methods could be used to predict the risk of bedsore. As a result, in an echo image, the muscle tissue structure of the heels was not distinct in all patients, whereas the sacrum and greater trochanter part were distinct in 10 of 18 patients. In thermography, the temperature decrease to the abnormal point was observed in 20 out of 30 patients. When the echo score was high, the temperature decrease of the abnormal point was observed by thermography. Bedsores are considered to more likely to occur after abnormal bedsore measures are detected. Even in a patient who has not yet developed a bedsore, a change in the muscle tissue structure and the temperature decrease of the abnormal point could be observed; thus, sonography and thermography seem useful for bedsore risk evaluation.
