Portable Spectrophotometry Increases Quality of Life For Accident Victims
There were three major problems. The first was that to match skin tone companies were forced to use only 50 color swatches to get close to the customer’s actual skin color which meant selection was very limited. The second was that even after the color swatch was selected, the colors mixed by prosthesis manufacturers had to be judged by eye which meant the color could vary based on who was making it. The third was that the colors on the swatches were heavily influenced by the environment and the light in the area where the color matching was being attempted. This meant that there was a greater discrepancy in the color when the customer would take the product home and put it to daily use.
Once these companies introduced portable spectrophotometers into their color matching it eliminated all three of those problems and assisted in vastly improving their ability to match skin color under a variety of lights in a variety of environments. That meant a closer color match and therefore a more seamless integration of the customer with their prosthesis. This has especially been beneficial for a cosmetic Microskin, a camouflage product designed to simulate a second skin for burn victims or accident victims with bad scarring. After these changes in production were implemented, a study was conducted in New Zealand and Australia with children who needed prosthesis or Microskin. It found that children who had reported lower quality of life after bad burns or accidents with their normal prosthesis reported a quality of life much closer to that of unaffected children who did not need a prosthesis or Microskin after having their Microskin color more closely matched.
