(Press-News.org) "The sensor provides opportunities to make specific and detailed diagnostics for a particular patient and to tailor care based on very objective and quantitative measures," said Eric H. Ledet, PhD, Assistant Professor, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
"This highly unique sensor is very small (4 mm diameter and 500 microns thick), is wireless, batteryless, and requires no telemetry within the body. Its simplicity makes it less prone to failure and very inexpensive to produce," Dr. Ledet explained.
The orthopaedic implant acts as a carrier for the sensor. The wireless sensor can monitor load, strain, motion, temperature, and pressure in the challenging in vivo environment. It can be placed into a spinal or fracture fixation implant, for example, to determine the patient's progress.
"For the patient that is progressing well, the information from the sensor enables the physician to determine that the patient can return to work without risk of injury," said Dr. Ledet. "The number of lost days at work is reduced."
It can also alert the physician to potential problems, indicating that additional interventions may be needed. "By maintaining a simple platform, we're able to customize the sensor and make it very, very small so it can be incorporated into a lot of different implants," said Rebecca A. Wachs, MS, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. "By changing one small parameter, we can change the sensitivity of the sensor itself."
Dr. Ledet reports a number of major breakthroughs with the sensor technology in the last eighteen months. Although the researchers are manually producing the sensor, they anticipate it will eventually be mass produced—driving the price down further.
INFORMATION:
About the Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS):
The Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS) is the pre-eminent organization for the advancement of musculoskeletal research. It
seeks to transform the future through global multidisciplinary collaborations—focusing on the complex challenges of orthopaedic
treatment. The ORS advances the global orthopaedic research agenda through excellence in research, education, collaboration, communication and advocacy. The ORS Annual Meeting and publication of the Journal of Orthopaedic Research provide vital forums for the musculoskeletal community to communicate the current state of orthopaedic research.
http://www.ors.org
END
Although only 2 percent of the American population that undergo total joint replacement surgery will suffer an infection, half of those infections are from MRSA. The results of a MRSA infection after a total joint replacement can be devastating. Currently, there is no effective treatment for MRSA-infected implants. With the increasing incidence of total joint replacement surgeries, the prevalence of MRSA-infected implants is expected to rise.
A team of investigators from the University of Rochester Medical Center has developed a vaccine that can prevent bacterial ...
MATERIALS -- Next-generation electronics . . .
Changing the behavior of a material isn't big magic – it's nanoscale chemistry. Alejandro Lopez-Bezanilla used the computing power of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Jaguar supercomputer, America's fastest, to study the effects of adding oxygen, sulfur and hydrogen to nanoribbons made of boron nitride. The added elements changed the behavior of boron nitride – a good insulator – into that of a metal. That makes the material promising for faster computer chips and smarter cell phones. Stable, inexpensive boron nitride can ...
According to Timothy E. Hewett, PhD, FACSM, Director of Research, Ohio State University Sports Health and Performance Institute and Cincinnati Children's Sports Medicine Biodynamics Center, that injury occurs due to a tri-planar multi-dimensional combination of factors.
"Sometimes in science we have a lot of clinical expertise and a lot of engineering expertise but we don't have much—what I call--'common sense-pertise'."
"Is it just anterior translation that strains and tears the ACL? Is it just knee abduction or that inward motion that tears the ACL? Is it just ...
A person has a tumor removed from her femur. A soldier is struck by an improvised explosive device and loses a portion of his tibia. A child undergoes chemotherapy for osteosarcoma but part of the bone dies as a result.
Every year, millions of Americans sustain fractures that don't heal or lose bone that isn't successfully grafted. But a study presented at the Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS) 2012 Annual Meeting in San Francisco offers new hope for those who sustain these traumas.
Orthopaedic researchers with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), ...
In a first-of-its-kind study in Canada, Kevin Bainey of the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry has discovered that South Asians who live in Alberta with coronary disease experience a lower quality of life.
This adds to prior data that this group lives with more severe disease.
Using the APPROACH registry, which captures information about all patients who undergo a coronary angiogram in Alberta, the research team analyzed data about quality of life and health status of this population. The validated survey results showed that South Asians' overall quality of life scored ...
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a potent regulator of sensitivity to insulin, the hormone that controls blood sugar levels. The new findings may help scientists find better treatments for type 2 diabetes, obesity and other health problems caused by the body's inability to properly regulate blood sugar.
The research is published online Feb. 13 in PLoS ONE.
Fat and muscle cells in patients with type 2 diabetes become resistant to insulin, which normally causes them to take in glucose from the blood. The protein studied ...
University of Melbourne researchers have found Wikipedia is the most highly rated website for accessing information on mental-health related topics.
The researchers assessed a range of on-line and print material on mental health-related topics and found that in the majority of cases, Wikipedia was the most highly rated in most domains.
Content about mental health was extracted from 14 frequently accessed websites, including Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica and a psychiatry textbook. Text providing information about depression and schizophrenia was assessed.
The ...
NEW ORLEANS – Simple tests such as walking speed and hand grip strength may help doctors determine how likely it is a middle-aged person will develop dementia or stroke. That's according to new research that was released today and will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 64th Annual Meeting in New Orleans April 21 to April 28, 2012.
"These are basic office tests which can provide insight into risk of dementia and stroke and can be easily performed by a neurologist or general practitioner," said Erica C. Camargo, MD, MSc, PhD, with Boston Medical Center.
More ...
A new study has examined how smoking-cessation aide varenicline may reduce drinking.
Results indicate that varenicline may reduce drinking by increasing alcohol's aversive effects.
Specifically, varenicline may increase blood pressure, heart rate, as well as ratings of dysphoria and nausea.
Varenicline is an effective smoking-cessation medication that may also reduce drinking. However, the means by which it might reduce drinking is unclear. A study of the effects of varenicline on subjective, physiological, and objective responses to low and moderate doses of alcohol ...
Alcohol abuse and dependence are common problems in the United States due to a number of factors, two of which may be social drinking by college students and young adults, and risk taking that may lead to heavier drinking later in life. A study of the neural underpinnings of risk-taking in young, non-dependent social drinkers has found that the caudate nucleus and frontal cortex regions of the brain show less activation in people who drink more heavily.
Results will be published in the May 2012 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently ...
