Using simple tools such as nude-colored patient gowns, hospital bedding or stickers could enhance a physician’s ability to detect cyanosis and other health-related skin color changes, according to a study published in Medical Hypotheses.
Human skin changes color as a result of numerous medical conditions. But it can be difficult to detect such discolorations because the shift in skin tone can be fairly universal.
In assessing this problem, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute concluded:
One potential solution is for hospitals to outfit patients with gowns and sheets that are nude-colored and closely match their skin tone. Another solution is to develop adhesive tabs in a large palette of skin-toned colors. Physicians could then choose the tabs that most closely resemble the patient's skin tone, and place the tabs at several places on the skin of the patient. Both techniques should afford doctors and clinicians an easy and effective tool to record the skin tone of a patient, and see if it deviates-even very slightly-from its "baseline" color over time.
