Abstract:
Sports injuries, specifically soft tissue injuries are very common and oftentimes require the use of sutures to aid in the rehabilitation of muscles, tendons, and ligaments that have been torn. Sutures are crucial to the field of sports medicine as they provide a mechanical basis to hold bodily tissues together after surgery. Following surgery, patients begin recovery by participating in postoperative orthopedic rehabilitation programs. These programs rely on qualitative approaches such as the patient’s pain level and tissue swelling to guide the process, which results in suboptimal recovery outcomes. To address the lack of effective biofeedback for personalized rehabilitation, the sensitization of orthopedic implants has been performed to postoperatively monitor mechanical conditions at the surgical site. These new technology developments have demonstrated that sutures can be sensitized, allowing them to monitor surrounding conditions in real time. While these early proof-of-concept developments are encouraging, very few sensitized sutures have been developed thus far because of limited clinical practicality. This work focuses on the development of a biocompatible suture that contains wireless sensing abilities and is made of biodegradable materials. In addition to this, a wearable device capable of collecting data wirelessly from the sensor was fabricated.