The contribution of fashion design to the development of alternative medical clothing

• Autor(a) principal: Naves, Lucas Bernardes
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.6/3117
• topic: Têxteis inteligentes; Têxteis inteligentes - Aplicação médica; Roupa inteligente - Materiais; Roupa inteligente - Design; Roupa inteligente - Aspectos tecnológicos

The present research work envisage the development of paediatric, antimicrobial and sustainable clothing for use in hospital environment. This innovative piece of cloth was devised to offer thermoregulation, physiological comfort and psychological well being for children undergoing chemotherapy. Simultaneously, it is intended to contribute for the prevention of nosocomial infections, particularly, cross-contamination with Staphylococcus aureus. To accomplish these goals we sought to create an aesthetically pleasing and appealing imaging combined with an ergonomic shape; well adapted to infants; with an easy facility of dressing / undressing; open and close; flexibility; freedom of movement; temperature and moisture management and, especially, antimicrobial protection. For this purpose we built a single knit structure (jersey) with two different raw material compositions: 100% cotton and 100% hemp, which were put to test. The aforementioned knits were submitted to an antimicrobial finishing treatment provided by three different agents: Agiene®, Bionyl® and Chitosan, each one individually applied by three different techniques: pad batch, print screen and spray/exhaustion. Antimicrobial activity was analysed by ISO 20743:2007 standard wheather major thermo physical properties were studied with alambeta (considering the dry and the wet state). The physiological behaviour was characterised by the permetest apparatus. Results have shown that the best optimized performance was attained by the sample 100% hemp with chitosan applied by pad batch. Taking into account this information and all the previous considerations, a prototype of the gown was produced.