Waterproof Casts and Braces

Less itching, better hygiene, and no missed swimming lessons while your fracture heals.

A broken bone shouldn't mean six weeks of itchy skin, plastic bags over your arm in the shower, and sitting on the sidelines at the pool. Thanks to modern casting materials, it doesn't have to.

Traditional plaster and cotton-padded fibreglass casts have one big limitation: they hate water. Get them wet, and the padding underneath stays damp for days, leading to itching, odour, and a genuinely higher risk of skin irritation and breakdown.

For Territorians dealing with heat, humidity and a lifestyle built around water,

that's a real problem, not just an inconvenience.

Here's the genuinely good news: waterproof casting materials and modern removable braces have changed what recovering from a fracture actually looks like. You can shower properly, keep swimming lessons going, and get on with life — all while your bone heals exactly as it should.

The Benefits of Waterproof Casts and Braces

Waterproof cast and brace systems solve the practical, everyday problems that make traditional casts so frustrating:

• Proper hygiene — you can shower, bathe and even swim, rather than wrapping your limb in plastic and hoping for the best.
• Less itching and odour — by keeping the padding underneath genuinely dry (not just covered), skin stays healthier and more comfortable for the full length of treatment.
• Fewer skin complications — trapped moisture against skin is one of the main drivers of irritation, breakdown and infection risk under a cast. Waterproof systems are specifically designed to avoid this.
• Uninterrupted rehab — waterproof casts and braces are compatible with hydrotherapy, so pool-based rehabilitation doesn't need to wait until the cast comes off.
• A normal life during recovery — for kids especially, missing a swim in the rockpools during the dry or cooling off in the pool during the wet season because of a broken arm is a genuine quality-of-life issue. Waterproof options mean recovery doesn't have to come at the cost of everything else.
• Removability where appropriate — some options (like the braces we cover below) can be taken off for skin checks, gentle exercise or brief hygiene breaks, under guidance from your treating clinician.

What Needs a Cast, and What Can Be Managed in a Brace?

This decision isn't really about patient preference — it comes down to the fracture itself, and it's made by your treating doctor, orthopaedic specialist or physiotherapist based on the imaging and stability of the injury.

As a general rule:

• A rigid cast is usually needed for fractures that are displaced, unstable, or at risk of moving out of position — for example, many distal radius fractures, forearm shaft fractures, and paediatric fractures that need close control while they heal. A cast holds the bone completely still and immobilises the joints above and below the injury, which is exactly what an unstable fracture needs.
• A removable brace is often appropriate for fractures that are stable, minimally displaced, or have already been reduced and are tracking well — think many stable distal radius fractures, boxer's fractures (a break at the neck of the 5th metacarpal, often from a punching injury), and some thumb injuries, including thumb UCL sprains (“skier's thumb” or “gamekeeper's thumb”).

Braces are also commonly used later in the healing process — for example, transitioning out of a rigid cast once a fracture is stable enough to allow a bit more protected movement, while still providing solid support.

At Movement for Life Physiotherapy, we're one of the few providers in Darwin offering a full plastering and splinting service for both upper and lower limb injuries — including waterproof casting and Exos brace fitting. You can read more on our physiotherapy page.

Delta-Dry: The Waterproof Cast Material We Use

When a rigid waterproof cast is the right option, we use Delta-Dry — one of the most well-established waterproof casting systems available, and the material we most commonly reach for.

Delta-Dry works differently to a standard cast. Instead of traditional cotton padding (which soaks up water and stays wet for days), it uses a two-part system:

• A water-resistant stockinette layer, applied directly against the skin.
• Delta-Dry waterproof padding, an open-knit material made from non-absorbent synthetic fibres, wrapped over the top.
• Standard fibreglass casting tape, applied over the padding as the rigid outer shell — so the strength and support of the cast is exactly what you'd expect from any fibreglass cast.

The clever part is in that open-knit structure. Rather than absorbing water like cotton, the fibres let water pass straight through and drain out both ends of the cast — usually within about 10 minutes if the limb is positioned to allow proper drainage after swimming or showering. From there, the material's high moisture vapour transmission rate lets your body heat evaporate any remaining moisture out through the cast, so the padding and your skin feel completely dry again within about an hour.

The result is a cast that can be fully submerged — in the shower, the bath, the pool, or the ocean — without the skin complications, odour and breakdown that come with a traditional cast getting wet. It's also soft and comfortable against the skin from day one, so it applies almost as easily as standard cast padding.

Enovis Exos Braces: A Smarter Option for Wrist and Finger Injuries

For a lot of stable wrist, hand and finger fractures, we use Enovis Exos braces instead of a traditional cast — sometimes called by their older brand name, DonJoy Exos. These are custom-moulded, removable braces that offer genuinely different advantages to a standard cast for the right injuries.