Chiyomi Mizutani

Human Friendly Applications of Functional Fibers in Aging Society

A characteristically high population of bedridden elderly in Japan is due to the infrastructural and systematical difference in the elderly care houses in Japan and other countries, and has been causing a big social problem such as odor in elderly home, care burden. The application of functional fibers as the phthalocyanin-processed fabric fiber to reduce the odor in the room, generated from bedridden elderly. The phthalocyanin-processed fabric was applied to the elderly suffering from a hand contracture. A grip rod made of the phthalocyanin-processed fabric was designed for a contracted hand. The clinical test was performed by applying a prototype of a grid rod to the contracted hands and observed the smell and fungus disease of the contracted hands. As the odor was reduced, the fungus disease also disappeared after a week. The same fabric was applied to cover a urinary catheter bag, which is normally placed besides the bed. Urine contains ammonium and bodily wastes as the source of odor. When the urinary catheter bag was covered by the phthalocyanin-processed fabric, the odor was considerably reduced after an hour and almost to the level of slightly noticeable smell after 5 h.