Development and preliminary testing of a standardized method for quantifying excess water in over-hydrated skin using evaporimetry

Abstract

Although evaporimetry (the measurement of water vapour flux density from the skin) has often been used to study the impact on skin hydration of using products such as baby diapers and incontinence pads, it is difficult to interpret results and to compare data from different studies because of the diversity of unvalidated methodologies used. The aim of this work was to develop a robust methodology for measuring the excess water in over-hydrated skin and test it on volar forearm and hip skin which had been occluded with saline soaked patches. Three repeat measurements were made on the volar forearm and the hip of five young (31-44 years) and six older (67-85 years) women and moderately good within-subject repeatability was found for both skin sites for both subject groups. Measurements taken from the hip were significantly higher (P = 0.001) than those from the arm and had larger coefficients of variation (3.5-22.1%) compared to arms (3.0-14.0%). There were no significant differences between young and older skin, implying that women for future studies could be recruited without regard to age. This is the first time that a robust evaporimetric methodology for quantifying excess water in over-hydrated skin has been described and validated, and it will form a solid basis for future work.

Skin hydration analysis by experiment and computer simulations and its implications for diapered skin

“…Overall, both experiments and simulations show that SC desorbs increasing amounts of water as occlusion time increases up to about 4 hours; thereafter the desorbed mass reaches a plateau. This observation is in contradiction with the work of Fader et al . which concludes volar forearm skin increasingly hydrates up to 20 minutes and thereafter does not hydrate further even up to an hour.…”

An Exploratory Study of the Effects of the pH of Synthetic Urine on Skin Integrity in Healthy Participants

“…Skin integrity was evaluated using noninvasive biophysical measurement techniques. TEWL was quantified using the open-chamber Tewameter® TM 300 (Courage & Khazaka Electronic GmbH, Cologne, Germany), and a metal stand was used to hold the probe horizontally to maintain a constant applied pressure on the skin to reduce movement artifacts [52]. It is accepted that there is no optimum TEWL value for healthy skin and that there is considerable heterogeneity among studies.…”

An experimental study of friction between volar forearm skin and nonwoven fabrics used in disposable absorbent products for incontinence

“…All fabric strips were cut (somewhat arbitrarily) with their length parallel with the machine direction of their manufacture, and all the samples of a given nonwoven were mounted with the same fabric face towards subjects' skin. Volar forearm skin has often been used as a convenient and accessible proxy for skin in the diaper area: 24,33 it is generally free of coarse hair in women and macroscopically reasonably flat. The volunteers were recruited to cover a wide age range, and they varied in the physical characteristics of their volar forearms and skin ( Table 2).…”