An ingrown toenail is a common pathology of the thick toenail. This is caused by a conflict between the skin and the nail plate, resulting in complaints of pain and inflammation. The causes of this condition can be diverse. Examples of this are: improper nail clipping, wearing the wrong footwear, the shape of the nail plate. There are several ways to treat an ingrown nail. The choice of technique depends on the cause and stage of the abnormality.
When an excessive transverse nail curvature is the cause of this pathology, a nail brace can be manufactured by a podiatrist. With this technique, a metal wire is manually bent, which is placed transversely on the nail plate and fixed. This brace will slowly correct the nail to a flatter shape.
This bracket is difficult to manufacture and has a number of limitations:
- There is not yet a good measurement technique for the nail curvature, which makes monitoring the evolution difficult.
- There is little control over the fit
- There is little control over the correction applied
The objective of this exploratory project is:
- Developing a digital method for quantifying the nail plate
- Developing a 3D printing workflow for manufacturing nail braces
- A survey of the professional field by means of a survey into professional interest and financial thresholds. This is to create a picture of the potential market for a digital workflow
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