The "coast" hydrostatic bed.

The water bed has ushered in a new era in prophylactic care for patients suffering from the sequetiae of spinal cord injury and other debilitating diseases which have rendered the skin susceptible to decubitus ulceration. A commercially available water bed is described which has resulted from improvements to a prototype bed first used in the spinal injuries unit of Prince Henry Hospital in 1969 (Jones and Burniston, 1971).