AIR Cradle image

Shortlisted in The Blackwood Design Awards 2019 under the ‘Best New Concept’ category, the AIR Cradle Patient Transfer System is a “revolutionary” device which aims to provide a lightweight, safe and comfortable alternative to hoists and slings.

The AIR Cradle was the last invention of award-winning British inventor David E. T. Garman OBE.

For many years, David had been studying the various practical difficulties and risks referred to in `The Guide to the Handling of People´, at the same time as devising a new means of moving and handling patients in a more dignified, safer, less stressful and relatively discomfort-free manner, aimed at effectively dealing with those difficulties and risks.

As a result, the AIR CRADLE is a helpful, revolutionary, safe, dignified and easy-to-use alternative to hoists and slings used around the world in patient transfer.

The key benefits of the system, which harnesses low air pressure, include its:

  • Comfort, dignity and safety for patients, including those requiring particularly delicate handling and transfer, those with a phobia of being hoisted, those who would prefer not to be hoisted, or whose care plans forbid that they be hoisted
  • Ability to sit a person up from the supine position or lie them down from the seated position, as well as slide easily from surface to surface
  • Important effect of always having the AIR CRADLE under the patient and on a bed or chair or mobile transfer height-adjusting platform, meaning that it avoids the carer having to lift the patient or the risk to the patient of being suspended above the ground
  • Potential availability in a range of sizes (small to bariatric) and with optional extras such as a belt, an additional headrest and a toileting-aperture
  • Simplicity and speed of use, including when used by a single carer
  • Ease to keep clean
  • Quietness of use
  • Ease of storage in small spaces
  • A light weight of 3 kg
  • Easy portability and transportation
  • Potential use in a home lift
  • Ability to transfer a person over more than a minimum distance

AIR Cradle image

On 7th May 2019, the AIR CRADLE Patient Transfer System was shortlisted in The Blackwood Design Awards 2019 ‘Best New Concept’ category and on 15th May it was one of the category´s two finalists.

David E. T. Garman Concepts Ltd.´s managing & legal affairs director, Rupert Talbot-Garman, commented: “Though the AIR CRADLE® Patient Transfer System was a finalist in The Blackwood Design Awards 2019, true success in relation to it will only be felt once end users and their carers are able to benefit from it.

“There is already demand for the AIR CRADLE Patient Transfer System, particularly from those who need assistance to get in and out of bed.”

David E. T. Garman OBE was the founder and chairman of Mangar International until 30th January 2014‎. He passed away on 4th January 2019, but his professional legacy lives on through his pioneering inventions and David E. T. Garman Concepts Ltd, which is owned by his family.

For further information on the AIR CRADLE Patient Transfer System, visit the website

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