UCHealth nurses craft headbands to make wearing masks more comfortable

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Wearing tight face masks on long shifts can be incredibly uncomfortable -- you can even develop pressure wounds. That's why nurse manager Kimberly Sperry at UCHealth Memorial Hospital Central decided to do something about it.

In a statement sent to KRDO Saturday, UCHealth said that when Sperry saw her coworkers in pain, she got to work with her sewing machine. Her creation is a headband with a button on each side to loop the mask's strings around.

“The N95 has to fit very, very tightly to your face,” Sperry explained in an interview with UCHealth. “So they are by far more painful, but even some of our acute care nurses are starting to develop what we call pressure injuries behind the back of your ears. And because there's so very little tissue back there, they become pretty serious, very quickly.”

So far, she and other nurse managers at the hospital have made 75 headbands, delivering them in goody bags to the ICU staff.

Nurse Trisha Senrick, who also helped make the headbands, said they're a morale booster.

“We have to wear our masks for 12-hour shifts … and the longer it stays on, the easier a skin breakdown can happen. I myself have experienced pain behind my ears after wearing it for a full day and even some bruising,” Senrick said in the release. “Most of our nurses, especially on the floor I work, wear the headbands and I started wearing a headband probably about three days ago and it's made a big difference.”