Back In The Game

Reported April 2006

BLACKSBURG, Va. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- When the star player of a sports team gets hurt, the whole team can suffer. Now, a new, high-tech approach to protect fragile bones can get injured players back into the game.

No matter what the sport, players who play hard-to-win, often lose to injuries. Keith Doolan, an athletic trainer for men's basketball at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, says, "The most common injuries we'll see are a lot of sprains or strains of ligaments or muscles."

But injuries don't have to send players packing. Experts in orthotics and prosthetics are developing new injury braces using state-of-the-art materials that help some injured players stay safely in the game.

Traditional heavy, bulky casts aren't fit for playing, but breakthroughs in materials science help make braces lighter-weight, stronger and made-to-fit in a flash.

Phillip Johnson, C.P.O., an orthotist and prosthetist at New River Valley Orthotics & Prosthetics in Blacksburg, says, "With the lighter material and the ability to make them very quickly, we can use them quickly and get the player back into play."

The braces are made from a combination of plastic and carbon that is heated to become soft and then molded into perfect-fitting shapes that allow players to play while offering full protection to injuries.

"When something's naturally lighter, it's more comfortable. It's easier to wear," Johnson says.

A running back on the Virginia Tech football team used a brace made from new materials to play with a fractured bone in his arm and it worked perfectly.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Lynn Nystrom
Public Information Officer, Virginia Polytechnic University
Blacksburg, VA
540-231-4371
tansy@vt.edu

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