Mannequin system for the self-training of nurses in the changing of clothes

Abstract

Purpose – For self-training of nursing students, this paper developed a mannequin to simulate and measure the movement of a patient’s arms while nurses changed the patient’s clothes on a bed. In addition, using the mannequin the purpose of this paper is to determine the difference in the handling of a patient’s arms between nursing teachers and students. Design/methodology/approach – The target patient was an old man with complete paralysis. Three-degrees-of-freedom (DOF) shoulder joints and one-DOF elbow joints were applied to the mannequin. The angles of all joints were measured using a potentiometer, and those angles were transmitted to a computer via Bluetooth. Findings – In a preliminary experiment, the two nursing teachers confirmed that the mannequin arms simulated the motion of the arms of a paralyzed patient. In the experiment, two teachers and six students changed the clothes of the mannequin. The average joint angle of the left elbow and the moving frequency of the left elbow, right shoulder adduction/abduction and right shoulder internal/external rotation were lower in the case of teachers dressing the mannequin than when students were dressing it. Originality/value – The proposed system can simulate a completely paralyzed patient that nursing students would normally be almost unable to train with. Additionally, the proposed approach can reveal differences between skilled and non-skilled people in the treatment of a patient’s body.