OWID: Optimizing Wound Healing Individually

Abstract: Chronic wounds represent a dysfunction of the intrinsic wound healing process. Advanced wound healing therapies apply exogenous biophysical stimulation such as photobiomodulation, mechanical or electrical stimulation to influence wound healing. This project provides a control systems perspective and engineering modeling approach for technical support of wound treatment therapy. Exogenous treatment controller modulation of the wound healing system is, for the first time, presented as a closed-loop feedback control system to guide wound healing treatment therapy research. The system components are introduced relative to the research to date. The overall closed-loop feedback control system is described for the light system, wound system, and treatment control system. Coupled feedback loop block diagrams of the treatment (stimulation loop) and physiology (wound loop) feedback loops are combined to create a full system, closed-loop feedback control model for wound healing. A stimulation loop includes treatment inputs and growth output. A simple approach of using the simulation control loop and a valid model for cell dynamics to design a controller is suggested. A feedback loop is shown whereby light is an additional controlled input, compared to the physiological healing process. This presentation of the integration of these works into block diagrams for modulation and control of the wound healing system supports the overall research goal of automated patient specific wound healing.