Contribution of textiles to medical and healthcare products and developing innovati ve medical devices

The application of medical textiles used in woundcare nursing, implants, and healthcare and hygiene products has been discussed. The production and properties of biodegradable polysaccharide fibres obtained from natural sources, such as alginate, chit in/chitosan, collagen, catgut and branan ferulate, have been highl ighted. Speciality medical polymeric fibres used for produci ng wound dressings, bandages and texti le scaffolds for tissue culture have been presented. In addition, the difficulties encountered by elderly people due to venous leg ulcers and a specific research and development programme carried out at the University of Bolton in developing novel padding and compression bandages for the treatment of venous leg ulcers have also been critically discussed. I t is observed that the developed padding bandages meet most of the criteria required for ideal bandages and have excellent pressure distribution property around the l imb over the exist ing commercial padding bandages. The pressure profi l i ng of the novel padding bandages in two-layer, three-layer and four-layer systems has been studied.