They can send a man to the moon, but they can’t design a bandage that doesn’t cause pain when it’s removed?
Parents the world over know the torment that’s triggered when their child’s bloody bandage needs to be replaced.
When my daughter was a toddler, she would scream like a peacock on fire when I would come within 10 yards of her bandaged knee.
Now, the wails don’t start until I’m four yards away.
Baby steps.
At 8 years old, the kid is still deathly afraid of any discomfort she may have to endure during the bandage-changing process.
The crying, the whining, the complaining; ask any parent and you’ll likely find that bandage removal is often more painful for the adult than the injured child?
Thank goodness for biomedical engineers from MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. The group of brainiacs is being heralded by moms and dads around the globe for creating the first-ever “ouch-free bandage.”
I don’t know how many of the scientists are parents, but on behalf of moms and dads with children like mine who have zero tolerance for pain, I kiss your unbandaged feet.
So, how does the magic happen?
According to engineers, the new bandage consists of three parts: A non-sticky backing, a sticky substance and an anti-adhesive layer. The ouch-free component is basically a pattern on the anti-adhesive part that won’t tug at skin or rip out body hair when you remove it. Researchers say the new bandage can be pulled or stretched lengthwise, but when it’s time to come off, it can be peeled away in a gentle upward motion.
The medical geniuses reportedly studied spider webs, which have some adhesive parts, and mica, a shiny mineral that flakes off easily, to help develop the new bandage. They also examined geckos’ patterned feet to design the revolutionary adhesive that secures to skin, but is easy to remove.
While the ouchless bandage is a gift to parents whose kids are constantly scrapping their knees, elbows and chins, it is even more of a miracle to moms and dads of premature babies whose skin is far more sensitive than that of adults. For the vulnerable infants, removing bandages that help secure IVs can cause painful scars.
“This is one of the biggest problems faced in the neonatal units, where the patients are helpless and repeatedly wrapped in medical tapes designed for adult skin,” Bryan Laulicht, one of the biomedical engineers from MIT who worked on the new bandage, told TIME magazine.
Published reports in this week’s issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, note that clinical testing of the pain-free bandage is set to start in the next few months. However, you won’t be able to add it to your medicine cabinet for at least a year or so.
How excited are you about the new no more tears bandage?
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