A Pressure Mapping Application: Identification of Seating Positions with Nearest Neighbour Analysis

It is widely known that the permanent seating position’s harmful effects could be reduced by a favorable seat construction, or the regularly modified body position, namely by the dynamic seating.
In extreme cases, for example with the use of wheel-chair and in the case of failure of sense a long term static overload emerges, a stable local high pressure value appears that creates further conditions for pressure ulcer.
To learn or to instrumentally support the proper seating behavior there are devices which instrumentally identify the actual seating position and the dynamics of the seating, qualify the actual situation, and give feedback to the end user visually or e.g. tangibly.
In this paper we would like to have the answer whether the pressure distribution is suitable for determination of seating position, and how the Nearest Neighbor Analysis can be applied for data processing for distinguishing the seating positions.