Word: decubitus
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...lost the use of his legs from an injury to his spinal cord in an auto crash while he was in the Air Force. Like most of the 1 00,000 U.S. paraplegics (both legs disabled) and quadriplegics (both arms and legs disabled), Boudreaux was constantly prey to excruciating decubitus ulcers, better known as bedsores. In the Veterans Administration Hospital in Memphis, he was condemned to lie in bed, face down, so no bony prominences could cause pressure and ulcers...
...Called decubitus ulcers, bedsores develop quickly when tissue dies after blood is squeezed out by body weight acting on such pressure points as the base of the spine. Flesh is opened right to the bone in oozing craters. The extra nursing care that is called for costs thousands of dollars, and insurance companies allot 25% of expenses in all spinal-cord injuries for bedsore treatment alone. Serious and persistent as it is, the bedsore problem is usually handled by a method that is decades old: sheepskin sheets that soften pressure on patients and permit air to circulate under their bodies...