Auto Excel air mattress?

Question

I am disabled and have just received one of these that doesn't seem to be working properly after 3 days. The nurse isn't familiar with the pump and overlay and doesn't want to call an engineer if it's not necessary.

This is a pump that blows air into different chambers in the air bed topper mattress (on top of bed's own mattress) It's got a set routine that it followed for 2 days adn then stopped and has done hardly anything now. The nurse wonders if that was it settling in but the book says 20 minutes to settle in!

There are harder fills at top and edges for pillow and for not being too soft at the edges and then large sausage tunnels where 1 hard 1 soft alternate tunnels for 4 Min's. Then the whole thing is hard for 1 min then the hard/soft ones swap places for 4  Min's then 1 min all full. Then it repeats that order over & over.

Now the entire mattress is softer and doesn't seem to have enough air. The pump is on and working but it's far quieter than before. The shift from hard to soft isn't happening either but the nurse says it is, a bit. This is not the nurses who installed it and they have been taken over by a senior person who keeps saying "do you really want me to send for an engineer if it's working fine?" Obviously not but in my opinion the mattress isn't working properly.

I established she's not seen one of them before and there are no other patients in the surgery that have one she can go and check on to see if it's the same as mine. The point of the mattress is to avoid pressure sores and I don't see how that is going to work if the mattress is stationery doing nothing 24/7. However I do admit it is quiet comfy now being partly deflated and squidgy and so soft to lie on! That's not the objective though.

Does anyone have one or has had one or knows some one who has? If you are a nurse or OT maybe you know something about these gadgets.

Please help.

Fridays · Accepted Answer

All I can suggest is that someone checks that everything is plugged in correctly and firmly, so there are no air leaks from the tubes connecting the pump to the mattress.

The fact that the pump is quieter might indicate that it's blowing air into the room, rather than into the mattress. Pumping up a mattress would give resistance, and therefore cause the pump to be louder as it's working harder to force the air into the mattress cells.  If there is no resistance, like when there is a leak, the pump doesn't have to force the air, if that makes sense?

Also make sure that any bedding covering the air mattress is not tucked in.  It's a little messy, but any covering sheets should simply be draped loosely over the mattress, as tucking the sheet in puts pressure on the air cells, possibly preventing them from inflating properly.

Also check the dial on the pump - sometimes the dial accidentally gets moved to a softer setting, especially when making the bed, which can cause the mattress to remain deflated.

If all of these things have been checked, and there is still no change in air pressure, then do call a technician to come and investigate it.  Your health is at risk here if you continue to use an underinflated mattress, so yes, it is definitely worth calling an engineer, because if the mattress is still soft, then clearly something isn't working!

Auto Excel air mattress?

1 Answer