It might not be an osteo-regenerator like you'd find on Star Trek, but it's certainly one step closer: undergraduate engineering students at the University of Delaware have designed a functional boot that helps bone doctors heal fractures faster.
OK, so yes, but not quite: the boot - dubbed SmartBoot by its creators - is modeled after the typical Velcro-strapped orthopedic shoe most bone-breakers wear to help simultaneously rest the foot while resetting the bone and lending additional support. SmartBoot also does this, but takes it one step further, using sensors and collected data to monitor progress.
"Patients are often trained in the clinic on a bathroom scale and then sent home with crutches, with the assumption that they can consistently perform partial weight bearing on their own," stated Jill Higginson, an associate professor of mechanical engineering, in a press statement released on July 14. She and Brian Knarr, an associate scientist at the Delaware Rehabilitative Institute, oversaw and co-sponsored the UD baby geniuses while they worked on their project.
"Sensors have become more affordable and smaller, allowing existing protocols to be turned into better tools for clinicians," Knarr says. The technology now lets scientists quantify whether well-established treatment approaches are delivering the best approach, he noted.
The sensors uses visual feedback to let patients know whether they're putting too much weight on the injured limb, which Higginson and Knarr have found is often the case. That way they can use it less so it heals properly.
These UD baby geniuses.
SmartBoot recently received a third-place award at the 2015 Summer Biomechanics, Bioengineering and Biotransport Conference in Snowbird, Utah.
