Erythema and skin temperature following continuous sitting in spinal cord injured individuals

Pressure sores are a severe and costly problem for many disabled individuals. There is a need for quantitative tools to assess damage produced by external loads on human skin and underlying tissues. Clinically, intensity and size of skin erythema have been used as indicators of tissue damage. Temperature is a quantifiable measure, and various studies have investigated the thermal response to localized pressure. The purpose of this study was to measure the effect of "long-term sitting" on skin temperature and erythema, in a situation that closely approximated what a spinal cord injured individual encounters on a regular basis. The resulting data indicated that: 1) a consistent skin temperature pattern occurred after pressure relief from the seated position; 2) skin temperature of experimentally-induced erythematous areas often remained elevated, even after one hour of pressure relief; and, 3) a qualitative, but not quantitative, correlation exists between erythema size and intensity and skin temperature. Implications of this research include the potential use of temperature to: 1) monitor the effectiveness of various strategies being used to prevent the development of pressure sores; and, 2) predict incipient tissue damage.