Medicated surgical braces

In current scenario, several surgical braces are available for different body parts like knee, elbow, back etc. for several clinical conditions, especially pain in that part of the body. All these supportive treatments are aided by some medication through oral route, which produces several side effects on prolonged use. Present work endeavors to combine these different treatments: supportive and medicated treatments by incorporating sustained release medicated topical patch into the inner side of surgical braces through specially designed patch holder mechanism for easy incorporation and removal of patch. It not only eliminates need of oral medication but also gives localized administration of medication, thus resulting in more patient compliant treatment with improving overall safety profile. For developing model prototype of the same, combination of surgical knee brace and oral NSAID (diclofenac) was selected. In order to execute the working prototype, a pocket mechanism to incorporate a sustained release patch of 7 cm X 7 cm size was designed. Patch formulation was randomly selected based on trial batches for sustaining drug release up to 12 h, considering put on- put off phases of brace of 12 h each. The pocket was designed in such a way that in case of any discomfort or other unfavorable conditions, it can be easily removed from the brace. Flexibility in terms of size, shape and drug release profiles proves its versatility for other supportive braces and medications. Thus this innovation can be easily extended for other braces like elbow braces, shoulder braces, back braces etc. It not only enhances efficacy of the current treatments but also improves patient compliance significantly.