An independent consultancy and test house which develops testing equipment and methods for the Surgical Materials Testing Laboratory in Bridgend has carried out an evaluation of Sentient Foam against other popular dressings on the market.

Sentient Foams have developed and Patented their foam products incorporating Dynamic Flow Technology (DFT). DFT is an on-line process which incorporates shapes into the surface of the foam during manufacture.

The surface shape characteristics can be varied and used to manage the fluid flow with compressed areas of the foam acting as a fluid flow barrier and the raised area as a fluid ‘reservoir’.

The tests were carried out on a test rig designed for evaluating Leg ulcer dressings and examined the effects of gravity and compression on the fluid handling properties of foam dressings using sophisticated time lapse photography.

A saline test solution was applied to the foam dressing as prescribed in BS EN13726 Part 1 using a highly accurate medical syringe driver under strictly controlled conditions.

The test results demonstrated that, by using a Sentient Foam dressing with Dynamic Flow Technology, the time taken and volume absorbed by the dressing by the time of failure can be improved significantly against other leading foam dressings on the market.

The Sentient designed dressing performed significantly better than any other dressing and compared to some cases Dynamic Flow Technology can improve the time before failure by over 300% compared to market leaders.

Picture below show the test set-up prior to starting the fluid flow. A ‘normal’ foam dressing on the left failed after 2 hrs and 38 minutes, a Sentient Dressing with reinforcement lasted 4 hrs and 55 seconds, A sentient dressing with Dynamic Flow technology lasted 9 hrs and 51 minutes.