Sask. family develops portable splint kit to help patients with brittle bone disease

Mother and son create splint kit WATCH: A mother and son from Milestone have created a splint kit to help kids with Brittle Bone Disease. Allison Bamford has the details.

A family from Milestone, Sask. is using their son’s experience to help other kids with brittle bone disease.

Carter Brown, 15, was born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta, also known as O.I. or brittle bone disease. Due to his condition, Carter’s bones fracture easier than other people’s do.

“Right before the pandemic I broke one of my metatarsals in my foot. I was just walking and I rolled my ankle and it broke,” he said.

“I can’t play most contact sports because for hockey I might break a bone if I fall on the ice.”

Carter has to be more cautious than typical teenagers, which is part of the reason his mom, Jennifer Brown, along with his doctors at the Shriners Hospital for Children in Montreal helped develop a portable splint kit.

“We’ve used a few splints with him over the years,” Jennifer said.

“Immobilizing that fracture helps the pain so much immediately, and so when you can do that for your child and you can help their pain that’s all a parent really wants.”

The concept is nothing new, she said, but the kit was inspired by conversations she’s had with other doctors and families.

The kit includes a one-step splint that molds to the body, medical wrap, scissors, cotton and step-by-step instructions.

“These kids still deserve to be going on trips and camping and all over the place and not just being stuck close to a hospital so we thought if every family could have a splint kit with easy-to-use supplies, easy to understand that their families would have a little bit more freedom,” she said.

Thanks to fundraising and donations, the hospital is able to provide a splint kit to every O.I. patient that comes through its doors, Jennifer said, adding people can get the supplies replaced for free online.

The kits recently made headlines with a publication in the McGill Journal of Medicine this spring.

According to Jennifer, the splint kits have been delivered as far away as Ghana, Nepal and Nigeria. While it is pretty special to have their design make it into a publication, she said she is just happy to help others navigate the challenges of O.I.

“Luckily for us, Carter was our first child so we didn’t know any different. We were still figuring things out as new parents just like anybody else and so when we added that complication on top of it, it just meant that our journey looked a little bit different than anyone else’s.”