Designed by the Brazilian Pedro Nakazato Andrade, the cast sends all sorts of stats on the health of the broken bone to an online spreadsheet for doctors to keep track of. This would hopefully improve the recovery time of the patient, plus cut back on visits to the doctor. [Pedro Nakazato Andrade via Fashioning Tech via Ecouterre]
Jack B
Monday, August 15, 2011 at 11:35 PMSorry, but how does this actually improve bone healing time? By measuring if the person does their exercises?
A wrist fracture usually involves only one to three extra visits to the doc after original setting. I’m sure calibration and a fitting and refitting a thermoplastic splint with embedded electrodes is not easier and definitely not cheaper (> $1000/sqm) than POP or fiberglass casts.
Also, EMG tests muscle electrical activity not bone healing.
Paddy
Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at 10:45 AMPlus it looks way too flexible for most fractures.
If you look at 0.57 min in the video, you can see a significant rotation in when she is cutting the flowers. This is not the immobilisation that you want in most radial/ulna fractures.
I think it’s a gimmick (from a medical point of view)