3D printed casts?

[Geoff]

Hi, so whats up with the 3D printed casts and why are they better then a traditional cast?

I'm not a Doctor so I could not say, not many people here could.

If I were to speculate, while it's nice the Plaster moulds to the shape of an arm or leg etc, just messy and takes longer to set and take off. A 3D printed one would also fit perfectly, go on and off in a few seconds (as you can heat it up, form fit it and let it set by blowing some cool air on it for a few seconds)

The downside is printing a cast that is that big, you need a big fast industrial 3D printer if you are talking about helping someone who just broke a limb.. But, if you are talking about prosthetics, and they can wait a day or two, a mix of silicone and 3D printing seems to be the new thing. You can customize the fittings...

Example, you have a child missing a hand, the prosthesis needs to be exchanged for larger ones as the child grows. 3D printing allows you to simply scale the original each time a new one is required and you can scale it so incrementally that it would provide the higher level of comfort and ease for the patient, rather than being fitted for bulky clumsy prosthetics they need to re-learn to use every time they get them. This way the new prosthesis is the same version as the old one just as the new desired scale.

But what would I know, I just fix copiers.