Medical science is perhaps a sector of extensive research and development. Every other news is coming about a new theory, invention, and discovery emerging as a milestone for treating diseases, accidents, injuries, and illnesses. There is hope for broken bones. People with broken bones will not visit Orthopedic Surgeons in the future but consult with engineers to treat their broken bones. But the hope is still in the cooking.

Apparently, it seems like a joke that engineers will treat the broken bones. There are many realities that initially were nothing but jokes. Scientific developments do have their own flow. Jokes turn into hard realities That are how life takes its route.

Treating Broken Bones

The Engineers (be corrected, Engineers NOT doctors) at the University of Connecticut are treating the broken bones. They are not using surgery, medicine, bandage, and plaster but electricity.

The open secret is that minor fractures need no treatment but care alone. Such fractures are prone to heal naturally. Severe bone breaks with a missing piece or badly torn bones need serious treatment like surgery, plaster, and other difficult methodologies.

Electrifying Broken Bones

Electric shocks are a proven treatment option in many medical cases, bone regeneration being one of them. Electric stimulation has already been found effective in treating broken bones. The device for such treatment, however, was huge and clumsy, needing installation and other prerequisites.

That is true with all devices in the early stages. Mainframe computer was also a similar example in the early days needing a whole room to install and a large team of people to run and take care of it. The whole roomful of the mainframe has now shrunk into a lightweight laptop.

The New Hope

The Uconn team has developed a biodegradable polymer scaffold capable of generating a controlled electrical field to stimulate bone growth. It is a battery-less, remote-controlled electrical simulator. It consists of piezoelectric nanofibers acting as a scaffold. The scaffold is seeded with various stem cells.

Then it is electrified by using an externally controlled ultrasound. The current passed at a much smaller voltage only a few millivolts. It creates the ultrasound vibrating the polymer scaffolding, which generates an electrical field. The device has been tested by influentially regenerating a skull bone in mice.

The future holds the promise of applying this scaffold to humans. It needs a wave a wand over it a few times a day. Being biodegradable it needs no follow-up surgical procedure for removing the device. But do be not in hurry to break your bones as it still is a matter of time.

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