Engineers have developed a new, low-cost bandage that speeds up healing times from nearly two weeks to just three days.

The method, which was developed by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, leverages energy generated from a patient's own body motions to apply gentle electrical pulses at the site of an injury.

"We were surprised to see such a fast recovery rate," says Xudong Wang, a professor of materials science and engineering at UW-Madison. "We suspected that the devices would produce some effect, but the magnitude was much more than we expected."

Wang and collaborators described their wound dressing method in the journal ACS Nano.

Researchers have known for several decades that electricity can be beneficial for skin healing, but most electrotherapy units in use today require bulky electrical equipment and complicated wiring to deliver powerful jolts of electricity.

"Acute and chronic wounds represent a substantial burden in healthcare worldwide," says collaborator Angela Gibson, professor of surgery at UW-Madison and a burn surgeon and director of wound healing services at UW Health. "The use of electrical stimulation in wound healing is uncommon."

In contrast with existing methods, the new dressing is much more straightforward.