The promise has been recognized for perhaps fifty years. Now we have a way to plausibly use it. Obviously beneficial for fractures we are unable to immobalize or support, but also for those we can.
This matters of course, but mostly in terms of direct improvement of comfort. After all a fracture hurts and hurts for a long time..
electriucal stimulation is actually supporting the regrowth moduality now at work so the healing should be much faster. The fact is that this can be additionally stimulated using ultrasound makes it practical.
Scientists Generate Electrical Field That Can Help Repair Fractured Bones
By Andy Corbley
-Jul 10, 2020
When it comes to broken bones, the children of generation Z may never have to deal with the itching that comes from wearing a cast—an all-too-familiar scenario for both kids and adults healing from accidents.
Instead, doctors may, in the near future, be able to repair broken bones by encasing the fracture in a field of electricity, which would be especially welcome for treating body parts, such as the skull, where casts don’t work.
A group of biomedical engineers from the University of Connecticut have invented a scaffold of non-toxic polymer that also generates a controllable electrical field to encourage bone growth. The researchers published a paper in Nano Energy after using their device to cure skull fractures in mice.
The scaffold mimics the natural electric field produced by our bodies, a characteristic called piezoelectric, meaning to generate electricity from vibrations, and can be affixed over the damaged bone without significant surgery.
The patient can wave an ultrasound wand over the area to stimulate the generation of electricity and, unlike similar existing machines that are bulky and require electricity from a power outlet or batteries, the device is lightweight and generates the field via ultrasound.
The polymer from which the device is made is non-toxic and gradually dissolves in the body over time, disappearing as the new bone grows.
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