An innovative high-tech prosthetic hand offers individually controlled fingers and a more realistic touch.
A new hand: The i-LIMB hand is a prosthetic device with five individually powered fingers to give users a prosthesis that comes very close to looking and acting like a real human hand.
Credit: Touch Bionics |
A new bionic hand is now available that, for the first time, allows users to operate the fingers independently, using the muscles in the remaining part of their arm. The fingers also have an increased level of sensitivity that enables the user to pick up a Styrofoam cup with little effort, or a business card off a table. A skinlike coating makes the hand feel and look more human than other artificial hands.
The new hand, called the i-LIMB, is made by United Kingdom-based Touch Bionics. The company plans to unveil the device at the 12th World Congress of the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics in Vancouver, Canada, held from July 29 through August 3. According to the company's website,
"The i-LIMB Hand is controlled by a unique, highly intuitive control system that uses a traditional two-input myoelectric (muscle signal) to open and close the hand's life-like fingers. Myoelectric controls utilize the electrical signal generated by the muscles in the remaining portion of the patient's limb. This signal is picked up by electrodes that sit on the surface of the skin. Existing users of basic myoelectric prosthetic hands are able to quickly adapt to the system and can master the device's new functionality within minutes."
The hand is already being used by soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan by improvised explosive devices (IEDs). A few months ago, I attended a dinner in New York sponsored by the Wounded Warriors, a group that supports soldiers wounded in the line of duty, and I was able to see a next-generation prosthetic arm. A major focus of the Warriors is to provide soldiers, who have lost arms, legs, or both, with prosthetic limbs, therapy sessions, and services to meet their needs.
Much to my surprise, a uniformed marine at my table was missing part of an arm and both legs. I say I was surprised because he walked and interacted normally. Although I noticed that his hand was artificial--it was made out of white plastic--he used it almost like a real human hand to eat, pick up things, and greet others. When I shook his hand, I could tell it was metal and plastic, but the grip felt natural.
I don't remember the marine's name, but I am truly amazed by his courage. He had been a sniper in Iraq and was wounded when his lightly armored Humvee was hit by a roadside bomb. Far from angry or bitter, he was recently married and is able to water-ski and participate in other sports and activities. At the time I spoke with him, he was gung ho about life.
Fortunately, those who are wounded and lose limbs during combat now have the benefit of advanced electronics, materials, and biotech to provide them with prosthetics like none ever seen before. Tragically, many more soldiers may need them before the war in Iraq and Afghanistan is finished.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Comments
dmm
07/18/2007
Posts:174
Excuse me? Getting married is courageous? I would think that it might be very attractive to have sum1 committed to you, especially if you are aware that you may not b able to do 4 yourself everything that you would like....Waterskiing? You know, there are such things as life preservers. Using a next-gen prosthesis? Hell, wouldn't it be more courageous to stick it out with a painful and less useful obsolete one?...
As someone who lives with disability every day, I find nothing more insulting than others' amazement at my "courage," or the "courage" of others like me. Because ultimately, when asked, the only thing the speaker can point to as "courageous" is living the same life as others. They can only point to living.
To believe that our lives are so horrible that it must take courage to eat breakfast, make love, go shopping, drive to work or take a shower is merely the insulting projection of others' fears of living with disability.
While some might show their misunderstanding in such extremely illogical thoughts as believing that wheelchairs can in any way be "confining" to those who use them, even that does not show the same level of distaste for living with disablity that more able-bodied people flaunt in their praise of the "courage" of someone having dinner in a banquet hall.
The most unfortunate part of that statement in this article is that it comes amidst news of a dramatic lessening in the differences in abilities between those of us who rely on prostheses and those of us who don't. And yet the author still finds it necessary to see us as "courageous".
How truly sad the author lacks so much in vision and in true empathy, not the pity and sympathy he may mistake for that valuable ability. Perhaps I should consider him courageous for living his life with such an obvious deficit.
cripdyke
07/18/2007
Posts:17
Maybe it will be a requirement for marines to amputate their limbs, and have superhuman prosthetic limbs attached.
I heard/read a story that foreshadows the above: a wounded soldier got his leg shredded in an IED attack. They could have reconstructed most of his natural leg, but with a major loss of functionality. The surgeon told him that another option would be to amputate his leg under the knee, and then give him a prosthetic leg that would be almost 100% functional. He opted for the amputation - it was a cold, logical decision. That's how we become cyborgs.
gabrielg01
07/18/2007
Posts:363
dmm
07/18/2007
Posts:174
I do have a slight disability that makes some things hard for me, but I do them anyway, and actually do them better (now) than some "normal" people. Is that courage? Not now it isn't, but when I started, and I was embarassingly bad, it took courage to keep trying. At least that's what it felt like to me.
dmm
07/18/2007
Posts:174