Multiple industrial-grade 3D printing systems located worldwide-even in developing countries-could be leveraged to manufacture the needed prosthetic devices. Overview of the design process in nTopology: from importing a 3D scan mesh to exporting a manufacturing-ready mesh file. “My hope and dream would be to harness those relationships with those who have powder-based fusion machines, specifically HP Multi Jet Fusions, and as there is capacity, adding sockets and prosthetic devices to those machines and then getting them to patients in need.” In that, I believe there is always room to add a prosthesis of sorts into the build for a very low cost or no-cost solution,” Wright said. There are HP Multi Jet Fusion machines in places that you would never expect. “I know Hewlett-Packard essentially has a whole worldwide network. Over the next five years, Wright and his team will continue investing in technology and automation and finding budget-friendly solutions for scanning and creating a global network of prosthetic device providers for developing nations.
Wright’s vision is to fully digitize the design and manufacturing steps, which are the most expertise-demanding phases of the prostheses fabrication process. The final design of one of the 35 custom-made flexible inner linings designed in nTopology. Moreover, the team achieved this result at a fraction of the effort compared to previous clinics. Within a month, LifeNabled delivered the prosthetics and fit them to the patients. Next, the engineering team designed each custom prosthetic and manufactured the sockets using HP’s MJF 3D printing technology. In just two days, two LifeNabled volunteers were able to evaluate 35 amputees. The process begins by taking 3D scans of the patients. The bottom line is speed: nTopology excelled in the speed at which it produced the sockets.” Most of the other programs required in and out and then a lot of computing power, which was not as fast as what nTopology offered. “Literally within just a few minutes, I have mesh files ready to roll without really any user input aside from swapping out the meshes that I need. Wright, a prosthetist and orthotist who works for EastPoint Prosthetics and Additive America, told that LifeNabled partnered with nTopology for this particular application due to its computing speed. But his NGO goes one step further and combines humanitarian labor with technology to “unlock true access to prostheses worldwide.”
For Wright, that means investing in people on the ground, in their home countries, and teaching them how to evaluate patients and then fit the patient devices when they come in. That means more than six million people in Guatemala (roughly 35% of the population) lack access to essential health services, including amputees.Īid organizations improve human resources by supporting and strengthening the health system. Compared to the US and other high-income nations, physician density is relatively low, with 0.93 physicians per 1,000 people, failing to achieve adequate coverage rates for primary healthcare. Like many developing countries in Central America, Guatemala has severe healthcare limitations. The hard work of Wright’s organization and nTopology is changing people’s lives for the better.
Manual fabrication of prostheses is a time-consuming, expertise-intensive, and laborious process. The new digital workflow saved the team more than three days of laborious work, bypassing the expertise-intensive and arduous traditional manufacturing steps and focusing on making the digital process as scalable and cost-effective as possible. Using patient scan data as input, they automatically generated the prosthetic socket designs in nTopology, and 3D printed them in durable TPU using HP’s Multi Jet Fusion (MJF) technology.
For their most recent clinic, the team stopped using time-consuming, traditional fabrication methods to create their prosthetics and pivoted to a digital approach by partnering with the generative design 3D software company. With his wife and co-founder Meredith Wright, Brent hosts bi-yearly clinics that have treated hundreds of patients in the poorest regions of Guatemala for over 15 years.
For this reason, organizations around the world are continuously working to address this need as quickly as possible. Even if they do, an amputee will often need a new device in as little as one year due to changes in the residual limb volume. However, in developing nations, very few have access to quality prostheses. Over 60% of them have suffered lower limb amputation, including below and above the knee. There are roughly 57.7 million people worldwide living with limb amputation due to traumatic causes. Hospital Shalom is the only facility that provides prosthetics care to patients of the Petén region in Guatemala.