Sreemoyee Chatterjee
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Written By: Sreemoyee Chatterjee | Published : November 19, 2018 4:28 PM IST
This unique shoe insole will heal diabetic foot ulcers © Shutterstock
Are you diabetic and suffering from diabetic foot ulcers? This is great news for you as this unique shoe insole cam heal diabetic ulcers and keep your feet happy, thanks to the researchers from Purdue University in the US who have made the healing process more portable, highlighted a recent media report. According to the experts, diabetic ulcers can result in patients losing their toes, foot or even leg. Also, patients can hardly notice such ulcers till they get to see blood and these ulcers cannot heal on their own.
"One of the ways to heal these wounds is by giving them oxygen," reportedly said Babak Ziaie, professor at Purdue. "We've created a system that gradually releases oxygen throughout the day so that a patient can have more mobility," he added, according to a recent media report.
The experts say that diabetic ulcers occur when high blood sugar starts damaging the nerves that leaves your feet and toes numb and without any sensation.
We typically treat ulcers by removing devitalised tissue from the surface of the wound, and by helping the patient to find ways to take the weight off the affected foot," reportedly said Desmond Bell, from the Memorial Hospital the US.
"The gold standard for treating an ulcer is a patient wearing a total-contact cast, which provides a protective environment for the foot. If we could test how well this insole delivers oxygen to the wound site from within the cast, then this could be a way of aiding the healing process," he reportedly added.
The researchers have made use of lasers to shape silicone-based rubber into insoles and created reservoirs releasing oxygen only at that part of the foot where the ulcer is located. "Silicone is flexible and has good oxygen permeability. Laser machining helps us to tune that permeability and target just the wound site, which is hypoxic, rather than poison the rest of the foot with too much oxygen," reportedly said Hongjie Jiang, a postdoctoral researcher at Purdue.
