MediKnit: Soft Medical Making for Personalized and Clinician-Designed Wearable Devices for Hand Edema

Abstract

Current rapid prototyping in medical domains relies on rigid 3D-printed materials, lacking flexibility, customization, and clinician-led input. This paper introduces MediKnit, a novel approach for the fabrication of soft medical devices, addressing critical limitations in existing design processes for medical devices. MediKnit provides a design tool empowering clinicians to personalize fabric-based devices for hand edema. This tool allows clinicians to adapt the design to individual patients' demands, thereby enhancing the overall effectiveness of therapy. The MediKnit device created by this tool consists of a machine-knit glove with active compression, which is programmable through a custom PCB. This device facilitates the mobilization of edema. To illustrate the practical implementation of our approach, this paper presents case studies involving six patients experiencing hand edema. The results demonstrate the adaptability and feasibility of our process for developing soft medical devices, highlighting its potential to broaden accessibility, facilitate personalized solutions, and empower clinicians as active medical makers.