With pressures rising to control the cost of healthcare, acute care hospitals strive to discharge patients as soon as possible.  Chances are pretty good that if you’re discharged from the hospital with limited mobility, you’re likely to end up at either a rehabilitation hospital or nursing home for continuing physical therapy. These medical centers may be the most appropriate place for many patients, but for others discharge to home with the assistance of home health care professionals and specialized durable medical equipment speeds recovery and reduces health care costs. Many studies have shown that patients tend to recover faster at home in familiar surroundings. Home care is also likely to come at considerably less cost, whether that is paid by the patient, their family, their health insurance, long term care insurance, worker compensation insurance, Medicare or Medicaid.

If intense physical therapy isn’t part of the medical treatment, care at home may have better results.  The psychological benefit of being in the care of spouse or family members is an energizing force in the recovery or adaptive process. The combination of being at home with family members and receiving physical therapy from home health care professionals can improve the natural healing process.

Problems of
limited mobility

If a patient’s prognosis points toward chronic lack of mobility, important, often challenging, long term care needs surface early.  For patients unable to move without assistance, there are many potential problems.  Unless bed bound patients are repositioned or transferred

frequently, they will develop decubitus ulcers, better known as bed sores, from skeletal bone pressure in the soft tissue areas of the posterior, hips, shoulders, elbows or heels.  Without patient repositioning or patient transfers every few hours, bed sores are inevitable. Clearly, a patient’s inability to assist in bed to chair to bed transfers can pose significant problems without some new technology.  These patients are also more likely to experience frequent urinary tract infections, pneumonia and incontinence.  In addition, continuing lean tissue and bone loss mean even greater loss of mobility and increasing challenges for caregivers.

Medical Technology Improves Disabled Care at Home

An extended period of home care for patients with limited mobility carries both emotional and physical burdens for caregivers.  Increasing time caring for mobility impaired patients puts greater and greater physical and emotional strain on caregivers.  Some even reach burnouts, unable to endure the constant demands and opt for placing the patient in a long term care facility.  There is hope, however, with the timely intervention of new medical technology.  What could easily have become a desperate situation for a home caregiver becomes the caring experience it should be with new assistive medical devices.

Vivax Mobility System

The Vivax Mobility System (VMS) from Vivax Medical is one example of how new technology addresses the critical issues facing limited mobility patients in home care.  In what appears to be a normal

hospital bed, a unique built-in conveyor system moves an individual weighing up to 600 lbs. from a prone position in bed to a seated position in a companion wheelchair without physical intervention by a caregiver.  Even the most diminutive of caregivers can operate the one button automatic transfer process with no moving or lifting or risk of falls. More significantly, many of the problems normally associated with the disabled can be avoided because frequent transfers reduce the risks.  The VMS replaces five separate medical devices (a hospital bed, electric lift, wheelchair, therapeutic support surface and commode chair) and countless hours of physical therapy and home health aid time. The financial savings and quality of life improvement for the patient are immense.

Aging Population with Fewer Caregivers

A health care crisis is developing. The U.S. population is aging requiring more medical care. Simultaneously, the growth in medical professionals is not keeping up creating health care staffing shortages particularly of nurses, physical therapists and caregivers. Therefore, greater patient care demands will be placed on family caregivers.  Without new medical devices like the VMS, health care costs will continue to escalate because many patients will require care in much higher cost medical centers.