over 7 million people will use some type oforthotic device by 2020. so if you think of anything that needs tobe supported. a simple foot, if you have foot pain. back braces are very common. many people have carpal tunnel, and positioningcan help relieve the strain on the carpal tunnel.
medical applications of 3d printing, what we're trying to do is to create a processthat uses a 3d printing technique that prints these orthoses in a layer by layer manner,and can do so in a custom way. and then eventually create a process thatconnects the orthotist to the patient, maybe without the patient having to either comein or only having to come in once.
we're using a new type of infill pattern thatuses a wave to infill the interior of our orthoses, and this wave just creates a continuousinfill pattern that increases machine efficiency, allows us to print parts very quickly. clinicians will scan the data of a personas the starting point to create the geometry, then the information is processed througha cyber or cloud-based software to modify the shape and create the tool path for the3d printer. the 3d printer then produces these assistivedevices, then the patient will be able to try and evaluate this assistive device. so some of the patients already don't weartheir orthotics because of lack of comfort
or lack of fit, or because they don't havethe chance to come to a facility like this. not everyone has a large medical center ora skilled orthotist or prosthetist that lives near to them and so the idea of a one dayvisit could be very attractive to people who are currently underserved. i see orthotics going the same place it'sgone since the first orthosis was made centuries ago which is, someone seeing a problem andtrying their best with the tools available to help that person out. i think that we as a field are always lookingat other fields to see what other people are doing and how can we use or leverage thattechnology to improve the lives of the patients
that we see. i think 3d printing is just gonna open thatup even more because once our design tools are established and once we have a known outputfrom the machine then our creativity should just be that much more enhanced.
