Ditch your crutches (the cast skate)

[Celebration]

http://video.physorg.com/?channel=your+health&clipid=915221

This is too cool.

[Warpy]

1. I don't see docs recommending this for a newly reduced fracture

but two weeks out, it would be a godsend for folks with broken leg and ankle bones for a couple of reasons.

First, there's the getting around reason. That alone will make it popular. It's much better than the usual "walking cast" that has a couple of rubber pieces set into the bottom. It's removable, so that you're not sleeping in everything you walked through during the day, much more sanitary. It also puts less stress on the cast by distributing the weight.

In the second place, it'll help fractures heal just a little more quickly once the clot has formed to stabilize the set bones. A study of Yoruba tribal medicine some years ago found that the village shaman would break the equivalent bone in a chicken, set the patient's bone and stabilize it. Then he'd require painful weight bearing exercises several times a day. When the chicken's fracture healed, the patient was pronounced healed and the splint was removed. Weight bearing stimulates the bone building cells to increase their activity quickly, thus healing fractures much more quickly.

I hope to see this in general use by orthopods soon, minus the chicken.

[Celebration]

2. what I liked about this story

Is that he turned around something bad that happened to him, used his critical thinking skills and came up with a solution. From that he has the potential to make gobs of money. I love this story. I remember our orthopedic doctor talking about those air casts when they first came out. He said, "I could have invented that. Why didn't I?"

Sometimes it takes a someone like a patient who just wanted to throw those crutches away.

Good point about the weight bearing!