‘Groundbreaking’ bionic arm that fuses with user’s skeleton and nerves could advance amputee care::The bionic arm has been working for years, reducing the user’s level of pain. The first person to receive it tells how life changing it has been.
‘Groundbreaking’ bionic arm that fuses with user’s skeleton and nerves could advance amputee care::The bionic arm has been working for years, reducing the user’s level of pain. The first person to receive it tells how life changing it has been.
I’m a practicing prosthetist in the US. Myoelectric hands are nothing really that new and even getting control over the hand by surgically dropping an emg directly into the muscle groups (though their diagram implies they did something different) isn’t terribly groundbreaking. The FDA had that technology in animal testing right around the start of the pandemic, from what I remember talking to an engineer working on a project.
For me, the exciting part is the osseointegration through the forearm. Osseointegration has been going on since like the 90s, but for a long time it was only through the femur. The first reason is really that the West has way more lower limb than upper limb amputations which is a different story. The second reason is that the femur is a big bone with a lot of interior space for an implant to anchor.
Recently I’ve been seeing transtibial osseointegration surgeries being performed, which has been a pretty big deal. This is the first I’ve seen of it being done to a transradial.
I will definitely be reading more about this at work tomorrow.