Which of the alternatives present the most likely to be the next step of the research?
Smart sensors listen to healing wounds
Researchers at Heriot-Watt University are creating tiny electronic sensors that can hear what is going on below the bandages.
Wound care costs the UK's health services billions of pounds a year.
While some types of specialist wound dressings are available, the principal method of finding out how well a wound is healing has been to remove the bandages and take a look.
The team is led by Dr Michael Crichton, assistant professor in biomedical engineering at Heriot-Watt.
He says he wants to bring data into the process. "If we can put a sensor on the surface of the tissue, around a wound or across a wound, can we actually measure what's happening?
"If we can do that, that will tell us if a wound is likely to be going in one way or another.
"And if we can measure it over time, then we don't need to keep on opening up a wound and saying, 'is it getting better or is it getting worse?'."
But what does a healthy wound sound like? Before they can know that, the researchers must investigate how skin behaves when it is cut.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-49311598?intlinkfromurl=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health&linklocation=live-reporting-story
