Objective
We aimed to investigate seated-posture body pressure distribution at the back- and buttock-supporting interfaces of the newly designed chair based on geriatric seated-posture.
Methods
The subjects were 33 women elderly care home residents aged ?75 years. Subjects sat in the designed chair or a conventional chair for 30 min, and their body pressure distribution was recorded at 1, 10, 20 and 30 min after sitting down. Interface areas, mean and peak pressures were determined for each time point from the recorded data and two-way analysis of variance with repeated measurements was performed.
Results
For the back-supporting interface, we found significant main effect in the type of chair. The designed chair had a wider back-supporting interface area than the conventional chair. At the mean and peak pressures, both back- and buttock-supporting interfaces showed a significant main effect depending on the type of the chair. In addition, at the mean pressures, buttock-supporting interfaces showed a significant main effect depending on the time point from the recorded data. In each case, the pressures were lower in the designed chair than in the conventional chair. We found a significant interaction in buttock-supporting mean pressures based on the type of chair and the time point from the recorded data.
Discussion
Results suggest that the body pressures of the designed chair could be lower than those of conventional chair as the body pressures were dispersed over the interface area to contact the back- and buttock-supporting interfaces by the seated posture of the designed chair.
