Electric wound dressing could help injuries heal faster

Chris Potter-Walker

Experiments in rats show that an electric wound dressing can help heal injuries faster.

It has been found that applying electric fields across a cut can speed up wound healing, but this usually requires large and specialized equipment.

The University of Electronic Science and Technology of China in Chengdu and his colleagues wanted to develop an alternative that could be used in a similar way to traditional wound dressings.

There are four layers to the dressing. The plastic that makes up the bottom layer is charged with an electric field. Next is a layer of flexible silicone rubber gel that moulds to the skin and then a layer of shape memory alloy that pushes the two sides of the wound together.