The European research project PUMA (Pressure Ulcer Measurement and Actuation) technically coordinated by Instituto de Biomecánica (IBV) has developed an innovative portable and non-invasive device to prevent and early detect the risk of Pressure Ulcer (PU) development and revert its onset for Tetraplegic Spinal Cord Injured (T-SCI) individuals relying on wheelchairs.
Besides IBV, the Project consortium is composed by QIMOVA AS (Denmark), as coordinator, BerkelBike (Netherlands), SensingTex (Spain), Estonian Innovation Institute (EII) and Centexbel (Belgium).
The National Paraplegic Hospital of Toledo (FUHNPAIIN) has collaborated in the validation of the final device with real users and ILUNION (previously named Vía Libre) has provided the double role, prosthetics technicians, as prescribers, and its proximity to the wheelchair users.
The PUMA project is funded by the European Commission within the Seventh Framework Research Programme 2007-2013, in the specific program "capabilities" in its call 2012 called "Research for the benefit of SMEs", with a total duration of 27 months with the contract number 315114.
http://puma.ibv.org
