Development of appropriate design guidelines for supportive underwear to improve the stress urinary incontinence in women based on biomechanical analysis

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K22829
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Medium-sized Section 59:Sports sciences, physical education, health sciences, and related fields
• Research Institution: Ryukoku University
• Principal Investigator: Tawara Daisuke 龍谷大学, 先端理工学部, 准教授 (20447907)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 二宮 早苗 大阪医科薬科大学, 看護学部, 准教授 (70582146) ; 岡山 久代 筑波大学, 医学医療系, 教授 (90335050)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-06-28 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: サポート下着 / 腹圧性尿失禁 / バイオメカニクス / 有限要素法 / モデリング / 軟組織 / 最適設計 / MRI

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The use of supportive underwear has been applied for preventing stress urinary incontinence (SUI) which is caused by descent of the bladder neck due to weakness in the pelvic floor muscles, because it is known that SUI can be improved by elevating the descended bladder neck. However, appropriate approaches to the underwear design are still being explored. We aimed to establish a suitable design strategy for supportive underwear instead of traditional development method based on experience and intuition. First, we made a computational model of the pelvis based on magnetic resonance images of a subject. Second, we proposed hyper elasticity of soft tissues of the buttocks, change in stiffness/anisotropy of the supportive underwear, and contraction behavior using a linear expansion coefficient. Our analyses newly elucidated a decrease of pressure from the abdomen to the pubis and an increase of pressure from the perineum to the coccyx is efficient in elevating the bladder neck.

Free Research Field

バイオメカニクス

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

第一に，経験と感覚が支配的な看護研究の姿勢に対し，工学的な手法により得られる定量的根拠に基づく解決法の提示とその重要性を示せたことで，発想の転換を狙える可能性を見出した．第二に，計算モデルによる解析が，実際の被験者を対象とする試験の代替となる発想を提示することができた．今後のヒト対象のものづくりの解決方法として，インパクトを与える可能性が期待できる．第三に，女性の羞恥心を解決するための工学手法によるサポート下着の設計戦略提示の重要性を示したことで，下着の履き心地開発やアプリのユーザービリティ開発等の新たな研究が促進される．工学，看護学双方に有益で重要な知見の新たな取得が期待できる．