Paper Title
The Possibility of Using Weft Knitted Spacer Fabric As The Wound Dressing For Pressure Ulcer

Abstract
Healing of pressure ulcer wound is complicated and time consuming. Not only affecting the lives of patients and caretakers, but pressure ulcer also becomes the burden to the government. With the developing wound management technics, companies have launched different wound dressing designed for pressure ulcer. However, regardless for their high price, it is rare that the wound dressing can provide good wound management and cushioning to the wound. Because of the excellent air permeability and compression performance of weft knitted spacer fabrics, it has been applied in different aspects including medical. This paper reports on experimental study of the requirements of pressure ulcer wound dressing and the performance of weft knitted spacer fabrics in order to verify the potential for using it as the wound dressing for pressure ulcer. Fifteen weft knitted spacer fabrics and seven wound dressings designed for burns and ulcers have been chosen from the market. The air permeability, thermal conductivity, water vapor permeability, absorbency and compression of spacers and wound dressings are evaluated. The results show that the air permeability, thermal conductivity and water vapor permeability of weft knitted spacer fabrics are comparable with the existing wound dressings. The compressional resistance and resilience of them are good for providing protection as wound dressing. The absorbency of them is somewhat better than some wound dressings, however, they are suitable for pressure ulcer wounds with no heavy extrudes. Index Terms- Weft knitted spacer fabric, pressure ulcer, wound dressing, physical properties