Case Study: The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs achieves fast, reliable production of custom flexible stylus holders for veterans with Markforged

How the Central Virginia VA Health Care System’s Assistive Technologies team seeks to improve the lives of military heroes through innovation

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Central Virginia VA Health Care System Assistive Technology team needed a fast, reliable way to create customized, flexible splints and a stylus holder for veterans with limited grip strength and hand dexterity. Printing with TPU was required for the flexible parts but proved difficult; to address this, the team turned to Markforged additive manufacturing and materials, including Smooth TPU 95A.

Using Markforged composite printers and an Onyx Pro (part of The Digital Forge hardware, software, and materials ecosystem), the VA quickly iterated and produced high-quality, repeatable TPU stylus holders tailored to individual patients. The result was faster production and reliable prints that restored patients’ ability to hold pens, enabled scalable customization across similar cases, and positioned the team to share designs publicly via the NIH 3D Print Exchange.