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Ed Yeates ReportingUtah researchers want to know how effective new prosthetic helmets are in remolding an infant's head back to normal again. The study will use a new 3-D scanning system to watch how the headgear reshapes a child's flat head.
Jack and Nicole Skadal are having their six-month old triplets fitted with special prosthetic helmets.
Jack Skadal, Father: "They said 23 hours a day, and we take 'em off only to clean 'em once a day, and they expect it to be about three to four months."
Weighing only five to six ounces, the see through headgear is designed to reshape their skulls, flattened from laying in one spot too much.
Nicole Skadal, Mother: "It's because they were seven weeks premature that they didn't have the extra seven weeks in the womb surrounded by amniotic fluid. So they spent that other seven weeks in the hospital on their back, flat on their heads."
For the first time, this new 3-D scanner will be used to follow the triplets and others as part of a collaborative study between Fit-Well Prosthetics and Dr. Louis Morales at Primary Children's Hospital.
This 3-D technology is pretty neat stuff. Not only does it provide for a very accurate fit for the helmet itself, it can actually show what the skull will look like after the molding is finished.
Sean Christiansen, Orthotic Fitter, Fit-Well Prosthetics: "We're going to scan them every time they come in, so we can monitor their head growth and where exactly it's growing."
While the Skadal triplets here are in a unique situation, flat headedness is usually preventable within an infant's first month of life.
Chris Hunsaker, Controller, Fit-Well Prosthetics: "If mothers can move their babies, make sure they're not always in the same spot."
3-D scans will not only follow these kids and how well they do with the helmets, but also patients with more serious skull deformities, before and after their surgeries. At Fit-Well the scans will also be used to make more precision fits for artificial hands, legs and arms.
Most insurance companies will still not pay for skull remolding, even though pediatricians and plastic surgeons says it's now much more than just a "cosmetic" procedure.
