New Prosthetic Technology Helps Patients “Feel” Objects
New Prosthetic Technology Helps Patients “Feel” Objects – One study from Ohio and one from Sweden garnered similar results — more freedom, movement and feeling for prosthesis wearers.
New technology is helping those with prosthetic limbs feel objects once again. Igor Spetic lost his arm in a manufacturing accident years ago. He’s been through a series of experimental trials of prosthetic limbs and now, with a new system developed by Case Western Reserve University, Ohio, he can feel, adjust force, and do much more with his prosthetic hand.
The Columbus Dispatch writes,”The system uses electrical stimulation to give amputees such as Spetic the sense of touch again, and in some cases, the ability to distinguish textures”.
For the prosthetic to work, researchers connected “electric contact points embedded into cuffs wrapped around the man’s nerve bundles”. Spetic and Case Western University also made headlines back in 2013 for similar reasons, so the recent news is more of an update than a breakthrough.
But it was not the only prosthetic news Wednesday. CBS brought attention to a related study published the same day. This one comes out of Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. The study involved connecting the prosthesis to the bone, nerve and muscles, through a process known as OCO integration. Previously, the electrodes controlling the prosthetic arms have largely been placed on the skin.
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