Most people fall into one of two categories. Those of us who have fragile bones that seem to break every time we have a small accident and those of us who seem to have bones of steel and bounce back from every nasty misfortune.
However, as some of us know, breaking an arm or a leg is a horrible experience. Because of the constant pain, as well as the discomfort of having to wear a plaster cast. A group of engineers based in Chicago decided to make the lives of people who break their arms a bit easier and came up with a new design for a cast. It’s even waterproof, so no more having to shower with a trash bag over your cast! We know breaking your bones can be difficult, so this will cheer you up.
A Chicago startup called Cast21 looked into the problems of plaster casts and tackled them head-on. Jason Troutner, biomedical design engineer Ashley Moy, and electrical engineer Justin Brooks, all from the University of Illinois, came up with a breathable, more hygienic, waterproof cast that can be fitted in around 10 minutes, using a liquid resin that hardens and sets the bone in place.
The only time I broke something [knocks on wood] was my left wrist, right before my summer exams at school. So I had to sit in a hot room while it’s boiling outside, writing essay after essay for hours on end while my hand constantly reminded me that, yup, it’s still broken. Trust me, it wasn’t fun.
“We have this radical notion that you can enjoy your healing experience. You don’t need to be restrained from daily activities,” Cast21’s vice president of engineering Veronica Hogg explained to the Daily Mail. According to her, their cast is designed to be removed easier than usual as well and doesn’t need a circular saw.
Those of you who saw designer Deniz Karasahin’s prototype for a new kind of cast called ‘Osteoid’ might think that it’s similar to Cast21’s design, but they are different. In this case, Karasahin’s design is 3D printed (not letting liquid resin dry) and involves ultrasound.