Details
- Affiliation
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AffiliationHamburg University of Technology
- Country
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CountryGermany
The utilization of strain gauges for monitoring the applied mechanical load to osteosynthesis plates using electronic implants was reported several times in literature. The technique was found to provide valuable information for monitoring the fracture healing process and for improving the rehabilitation. This paper introduces a new electronic osteosynthesis implant, which uses supercapacitors as an energy storage for short term autonomous operation. Moreover, a bluetooth low energy (BLE) transceiver is integrated into the system, which covers larger distances and is less susceptible to misalignment than the commonly used inductive power and data transmission. This improves the usability of the proposed system in more practical application scenarios and reduces the constraints for the patients. The system can continuously sample and transmit strain values for more than ten minutes without being recharged. Its dimensions of 20 mm x 16 mm still fit on osteosynthesis plates for larger bones.