Weighing a patient can be a real challenge in some circumstances.
That is true for patients who have limited freedom of movement caused by old age, pathologies, or others (see the article “how to monitor weight in a patient with reduced mobility“), but it’s certainly more difficult for those patients who cannot get out of bed.
In fact, some people, due to different problems such as injuries or pathologies, have to spend a long period in bed. Or we think of patients hospitalized in intensive care, in burned, polytraumatized, or dialysed centers, just to name a few.
In these situations, weighing the patient could be both a difficult and delicate operation.
What solutions are there in the hospital and healthcare market today?
Are there devices that can ensure patient safety and make it easier the operator’s work?
Yes! There are different devices designed and manufactured for each specific situation on the market. Let’s see an overview of the most used devices today, their main characteristics, and their use.
The platform for beds or stretchers, are platforms that allow you to detect the patient’s weight without getting him out of bed. To do this, simply place the bed or stretcher on the platform to obtain the weighing data. Obviously, to know the patient’s weight, it will be necessary to know the tare weight of the bed or stretcher used. Many weighing systems, such as the Wunder systems, have the tare function to simplify this step.
The bed platforms are perfect when moving the bed or stretcher is possible and doesn’t cause problems for the patient.
The weighing bars work in a similar way to the platforms for beds or stretchers. The main difference is that instead of having a single large platform, the weighing bars, as the word says, are formed of two distinct bars on which to place the wheels of the bed or stretcher with the patient to be weighed.
That allows the operator to easily move the two bars from one department to another and, once put away, they require limited space.
The lift scale applied to weighing in the medical sector is a compact but very robust and efficient object and is indicated for weighing patients who, due to disabilities, pathologies, or others, are forced to a long hospital stay in bed. To use it, a lift scale needs a patient lift, a device generally formed of a steel structure, and a harness.
To obtain the patient’s weight, simply secure the top of the lift scale to the patient lift and its lower part to the harness that holds the patient. Once everything is set up, just use the patient lift to lift the patient as much as necessary and read the weight directly on the lift scale display.
Finally, among the devices useful for weighing a bedridden patient, we find the scale bed.
This type of bed offers many additional comforts and functions compared to a “standard” bed, and more important is equipped with load cells that allow the detection of the patient’s weight. The different types of bed scales are also useful products for situations such as intensive care and large burn or polytrauma centers. Even dialysis centers need specially certified scale beds, which allow you to monitor the weight before, during, and at the end of the session.
Monitoring the patient’s weight with a bed scale is quick and easy and does not need to move the patient or the bed.
Bedridden patients are not all the same. The problems and needs change.
However, tracking their weight won’t be a problem. This is because, as we have just seen, the medical scales sector offers different useful devices such as the platform for bed/stretchers, weighing bars, lift scales, or bed scales that allow you to carry out this task easily and safely.
As a scale manufacturer, at Wunder, we have made several devices for that.
You can find out more about our products by visiting the medical website medicale.wunder.it/gb and following us on social media.
Contact us if you want more information.
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