Personal move: smart orthosis with stiffness options will restore after injury

Young scientists have developed a rehabilitation orthosis that exactly repeats the anatomical features of the patient's wrist or ankle joint and allows you to program the rigidity of fixation depending on the severity of the injury. The product is manufactured using additive technologies. During its development, modern IT technologies were used, including 3D scanning of the patient's limb. To date, a prototype has already been prepared and the technology for its creation has been fully developed. Read more about the new injury recovery tool in the Izvestia article.

Personalized orthosis for injuries and fractures

Sechenov University has developed a smart orthosis with programmable stiffness properties for recovery from injuries and fractures, the university's press service told Izvestia. The advantages of the so-called fixator are that it can be made individually for a specific patient and the stiffness of fixation can be varied, which increases the effectiveness of rehabilitation of patients with ligament injuries and certain types of fractures, said Anastasia Smagina, the author of the development, a fourth-year student at the N.V. Sklifosovsky Institute of Clinical Medicine, who studies at the Sechenov University Digital Department.

In addition, the product is X—ray transparent, allows the skin to breathe and is not afraid of water - unlike fabric samples, you can take a shower with it.

— For two years in a row, in the summer at the cottage, I injured my ankle joint — first on one leg, then on the other, — the author told about the background of the development. — I had to wear a fabric orthosis with stiffeners for a long time. I faced a lot of inconveniences — how to swim in a lake in the heat, what to do on a sandy beach when you can't walk without rehabilitation equipment, and it immediately fills with sand and chafes your skin. And so the idea arose of how to make the orthosis more convenient and comfortable to use.

The essence of the technology is as follows: first, an electronic solid-state model of a limb is created using three-dimensional photogrammetric scanning. Then, in any convenient CAD program (software designed to create two-dimensional or three-dimensional graphic images. — Izvestia) this model transforms into a shell, which is cut off along the border of the future product and transformed into a bionic mesh.

The resulting model is adapted in a special program for printing on a photopolymer 3D printer, a photopolymer resin with the desired characteristics is selected and the printing process is started. After manufacturing, only a small mechanical treatment is needed to remove the supports that are obtained when the printer is running, the developers said. In case of minor ligament injuries, a flexible orthosis can be made for the patient. It can be easily removed and put on, like a glove or sock. In case of fractures, the product will be more rigid and durable.

— Another advantage is a significantly lower cost compared to existing products and a short manufacturing cycle, — Anastasia Smagina added. — It has no direct analogues. Similar designs have been developed by foreign researchers, but their products can only completely immobilize the joint, that is, they cannot be made in a "flexible version".

The market of personal orthoses in Russia

Today, a prototype of the "smart" orthosis has already been developed and the entire cycle of its manufacture has been worked out. The developers plan for the future to create products from a new generation of resins of domestic production with antibacterial and fungicidal properties. Rehabilitation products made from such materials will prevent the occurrence of various surface infections.

Personalized orthoses are quite widely represented on the market. In this case, it is important exactly how this prototype was developed, how well modern IT technologies were used, and whether this made production faster and less costly, Alexey Komyagin, director of the NTI Bionic Engineering in Medicine Competence Center at SamSMU, told Izvestia.

— According to the developers, they were able to achieve an increase in production efficiency, which is a positive result, since cost and timing are no less important than personalization and consideration of anatomical features. Developments that can enhance patient comfort will always be in demand. And if the orthosis is softer, more breathable and at the same time not inferior in efficiency, it will find its consumer," the expert said.

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How did the domestic assembly optimize the production of such products, taking into account individual anatomical features

In tasks where it is necessary to create a unique and personalized product, 3D printing technologies are becoming difficult to replace, said Stanislav Stragnov, head of the Laboratory for the Analysis of public health indicators and digitalization of healthcare at MIPT.

— However, I would not undertake to say that such a solution will quickly become widely available, because we need to provide three-dimensional scanning, create a limb model somewhere, and adapt it for printing on a 3D printer. I'm not sure if something like this will appear in at least one region in the next six months," he said.

In order to prove the safety and effectiveness of the technology, biomechanical studies and randomized trials with an assessment of long-term results are required, said Danila Ananyin, Associate professor of the Department of Traumatology and Orthopedics at RUDN University.

— It is unclear why this orthosis is called smart. The product description does not contain information that it contains any mechanism or microchip that adapts the product to the load or patient based on any algorithm or program. Obviously, we are talking about an individual orthopedic product that is made for a specific patient," the specialist noted.

In addition, the technology requires licensing and approval when used with the chief specialist of the Ministry of Health for prosthetic and orthopedic care, the expert emphasized.