Aesthetics in Orthopedic Products: Applications of the Advanced Manufacture (AM) to the Industrial Design of Orthoses

Abstract

Orthopedics and Rehabilitation are two disciplines related to technological change that generate a high demand and a growing volume of activity in developed countries. The design and manufacture of Orthopedic Product has recently undergone great development as it benefits from advances in Industrial Design and new Advanced Manufacturing techniques based on Rapid Prototyping and Additive Manufacturing. The Industrial Design applied to the Orthopedic Product offers to this sector great possibilities of development in the design and manufacture of the splints or orthosis required, but its real implementation requires increasing the provided advantages to those manufactured by traditional methods. The aim of this paper is to invest qualities that improve the chain value of the obtained orthoses by Advanced Manufacturing methods compared to traditional methods, in order to consolidate the expected demand. For this, in addition to ensuring these devices the health function that is required, it is proposed to incorporate the Design Aesthetics as an emotional differentiating element that directly affects the psychology of the injured person to avoid the lack of self-esteem and integration that causes an injury or a morphological alteration.