Smart Cast "Likes" Your Broken Arm
James Bullen
at 12:00 AM 15 Sep 2020
Comments 0
Bones connects to social media
IMAGE BY Pedro Andrade
Health // 

Breaking your arm is an unpleasant experience - the pain, the weeks of healing, losing the ability to perform everyday tasks quickly and easily. But one invention seeks to ease those pains, breathing new technological life into the traditional plaster cast.

Labelled "Bones," the orthopedic device is embedded with electromyographic sensors which analyse muscle activity in the fracture area as users go about their daily activity.

This data is then stored in the device until it can be wirelessly shared to a patient's online profile, which tracks their progress towards full mobility.

Designer Pedro Andrade is trying to give users a sense of continued achievement by allowing them to see how their injury is improving over time.

What's more, Bones doesn't just passively record data. The technology also actively involves itself in a user's improvement by recommending specific exercises to keep muscles active.

Once patients begin to do these exercises, Bones calculates their impact on a fracture's mobility and predicts an amount of time until full recovery. As more and more tasks of the Bones cast are completed, a patient's recovery time becomes less and less.

Andrade has focused on exercising muscles while a patient has their cast on because many who suffer fractures exercise their broken limb only after the cast has been taken off. In the meantime, they've lost large amounts of muscle from their arm or leg. Bones encourages users to exercise throughout the duration of having their cast on to keep their muscles strong.

A social media aspect has also been worked into Bones. Doctors and sufferers of similar fractures can view your injury data online, as well as your progress. What this means for doctors is greater speed in giving feedback to their patients, as they don't have to wait for an appointment to get advice.

What it means for patients is a greater number of sources to draw advice from, as the situation of a patient can be viewed by all doctors and physiotherapists on the Bones network.

Patients can also network and share experiences of similar fractures, as well as their personal successes and setbacks.

In other respects, Bones is a normal cast, with all the normal healing properties of traditional plaster.

Its extra features, however, aim to ease traditional problems associated with a fracture - isolation, uncertainty of healing time, and inability to speed the healing process.


 
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