July 27th, 2006 | 
Remember breaking your arm, leg or even your skull when you were young? Probably while doing something that now seems insanely stupid, but was a total blast while your were doing it. The downside wasn’t the fractures – although they sorta sucked - the real problem was that you had to watch all the other kids doing the things you wanted to do and couldn’t. Of course, fractures later in life suck even more. They take forever to heal, if they actually heal, are painful, and your mom isn’t around to do everything for you while you recuperate.
Well, on the way to Star Trek-ish instant and non-invasive orthopedic repair, a company named Smith & Nephew has just received FDA approval for a new, ultrasonic device that accelerates the healing of broken and damaged bones.
From the press release:
“The system is also clinically proven to speed up the healing of certain new fractures by 38 percent and effectively healing 86 percent of hard-to-heal bone fractures.”
Now you can have low-cost fracture repair in your very home. Say your kid hits a tree sledding at 30MPH . . . no sweat. Why waste your valuable time and money on that hospital emergency room? Just have him bite down on something to stop the screaming (OK, he’s in agony – does that mean you have to listen to him?) and attach this baby to him. He’ll be back on the Flexible-Flier in no time.
If your mother trips, falls and shatters her hip . . . don’t send her to one of those loser nursing homes. Connect her up with a few of these devices and she’ll be as kicking up her heals before you know it.
Seriously. This is very cool and indicative of the stuff being worked on by the medical and bio-medical companies to take advantage of the market created by the aging boomer population (see my previous post on Boomeritis). Smart companies are going to make a boat-load of money addressing this market and, in return, the target consumers will have longer and healthier lives. Let’s hear it for capitalism.
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