Electric bandages can help speed the healing of wounds Open wounds healed 30% faster in lab rodents The bandages could help diabetics with foot ulcers, among others FRIDAY, Aug. 9, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Newly developed battery-powered electric bandages could help wounds heal more quickly, a new study reports. In animal testing, wounds treated with electric bandages healed 30% faster than wounds treated with conventional bandages, researchers reported Aug.
7 in the journal . The bandages could be a game-changer in treating slow-healing wounds caused by and other chronic illnesses, researchers say. Those sorts of wounds significantly increase a person’s risk of amputation and death.
“Our goal here was to develop a far less expensive technology that accelerates healing in patients with chronic wounds,” said researcher , an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at North Carolina State University. “We also wanted to make sure that the technology is easy enough for people to use at home, rather than something that patients can only receive in clinical settings,” Bandodkar noted in a university news release. The study is part of a larger Defense Department-funded effort to accelerate wound healing through different types of innovative dressings, researchers said.
These electric bandages have electrodes on one side and a small water-powered battery on the other, researchers said. The dressing is applied so that the electrodes contact the wound, and t.