Hospital Beds – Types And Applications

When you fight some illness at home, it’s hard to say how long it will take to recover. As opposed to this if you are under treatment in a hospital, you will recover with each passing day. Obviously, the medicine and medical care plays its part in the recuperation of the patient. However, you cannot ignore the role of different hospital beds. In fact, there are some medical conditions that can be treated by the correct elevation or positioning of the bed. Likewise, different types of hospital beds are used in different situations where they serve the purpose of treatment. Gatch Bed The Gatch bed has been used in hospitals for a long time. Nowadays, you are likely to find these in nursing homes or old places where there is lack of electricity. This means that Gatch beds are still in use especially in most economically deprived areas. The bed is manually operated using three cranks. These are present just below the bed mattress right at the foot of the bed. One crank is meant to lift and lower the whole bed whereas; the other one only lifts and lowers the head portion of the bed. The third crank is solely dedicated to lifting and lowering the foot region of the bed. Electric Beds It’s needless to say that electric beds are the basic requirement in a modern hospital. In most of the town or city hospitals, you will find electric beds. For elevating these beds, you don’t have to use manual levers. These can be operated with buttons that are present on the side rails. In case the patient feels like elevating his bed, he doesn’t need to call the nurse. The patient can easily raise or lower the bed using those buttons. Stretchers These are special types of hospital beds that are used in times of emergency. This is why you will see these beds in the hospital emergency unit. Stretchers are light weight and particularly designed for mobility. With these beds, it’s far easier to transfer the patient from home to the ambulance and then to the hospitals’ ER unit. Moreover, stretchers have folding legs so that you can easily keep the patient in ambulance. Circo-electric Beds These beds are electrically operated to rotate within circular bars. A circular bed in rotation appears to be a hamster treadmill. These beds are used for specific patients. For instance, a patient with an extreme skin condition or with severe burns or some sort of spinal injury can use this bed. But every patient has to turn his/her position after every two hours or so. Such patients cannot be turned otherwise, without worsening their condition. Low Beds These are specially designed beds meant only for patients who can fall off their beds. In this bed, the patient is usually restrained between the rails. Usually, these beds are just 2 feet or 8 inches above the ground. The height of low beds can be adjusted but most of them have a fixed height. However, the head and foot of these beds can be elevated or lowered. Low Air Loss Hospital Beds These are special purpose beds designed to comfort burn patients or those who have had skin grafts. The idea is to keep them completely dry and cool. In low air loss beds, air can be blown into the sacs of the mattress. A bed that has air pockets is ideal for patients susceptible to pressure ulcers or if he has some circulatory or other severe skin condition. Low air loss beds act as perfect pressure reducers on the skin. Clinitron beds The Clinitron bed is not much different than the low air loss hospital bed. In fact, it combines the features of both a low air loss and circo-electric bed. The main purpose of this bed is to reduce pressure on the person’s skin. The mattress of the Clinitron bed is filled with a material similar to sand. This material maintains a certain temperature to keep the patient warm and evenly support the patient’s weight.