Posted by schlunsg on Monday, March 21, 2016 in Progress Report.

Progress Report #8

Background: “Diabetes is increasingly prevalent, affecting approximately 29.1 million Americans today. Twenty-five percent of diabetic patients develop diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) over their lifetime. About 80,000 lower-limb amputations occur in the U.S. every year as a result of DFUs. The current standard of care passively treats the DFU with an off-loading total contact cast. Due to this passive healing method, DFUs may not heal completely thus increasing the risk of infection and possible amputation. In recent years, studies have shown that low-level light therapy (LLLT) is a viable, active treatment method that accelerates wound healing and decreases the incidence of infection. This team developed a medical device, LumaSil, utilizing LLLT with infrared (IR) and blue light to actively heal DFUs as an addition to the standard of care. LumaSil is a low-risk, waterproof, shock resistant device that seeks to actively heal DFUs with no additional effort from the patient. This device automatically controls the therapeutic dosage of light using custom circuitry. Incorporated into the cast, this device is simple to apply, durable, and low-profile. Through a feasibility study, the team worked to prove that LumaSil is safe, automated, and will reduce healing time and incidence of infection.”

According to our correspondent in the IRB, our proposal is being reviewed this Wednesday, March 23, 2016, after which we will hopefully receive approval to begin our feasibility study.

Since our last report,

• In the past weeks since our last report, we have successfully acquired and begun testing of our 28 pin microcontrollers, the MSP430F2132IPW. Unfortunately, due to delays in the acquisition of our components, we have run behind schedule by about 2 weeks. Despite this, we will have a functional prototype finished by this coming Monday, March 28, and we should be able to begin our feasibility study within our predicted time frame.
• The design for the halo and connector have been nearly finalized, with only minor changes still required to the shapes and dimensions of the connector. Additionally, we are still exploring methods for securing all of the components within the LumaSil box, and we expect to have finalized all those designs by the end of this week.

Overall, the delays that have been introduced have required us to push back our timeline by a week, however, we are still expected to begin our feasibility trial within the time frame we had initially laid out. The next two weeks will be spent finalizing our prototype and ordering all of the remaining components, including any additional circuit components plus cabling for the fiber optics. We will be extensively using 3D printing to design and create the remaining pieces necessary for the connection between the halo and the LumaSil box.