Word: decubitus
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Bedsores, or decubitus ulcers, plague many patients who must remain immobile for long periods. But a device now in use at the Jersey City Medical Center seems to prevent such painful and potentially debilitating sores from developing. Drs. Joseph Timmes, Paul Harper and Joyce Rocko report in American Family Physician that they placed 48 patients on hospital-bed-size water mattresses. Of the 24 patients who already had bedsores, 71% were completely healed after staying on waterbeds for an average of 21.9 days. None of the other 24 patients, who were sore-free but considered sore-prone, developed decubitus ulcers...
...Decubitus ulcers, or bedsores, have for centuries plagued patients and stubbornly resisted the efforts of doctors to cure them. But it appears that the sores, which result from the continuous pressure of the body against the bed, are succumbing to new versions of an almost forgotten medical approach...