Coapt, Chicago, and WillowWood, Mt. Sterling, Ohio, have formed a partnership to develop an upper-limb prosthetic liner that will combine WillowWood’s interface materials and design with Coapt’s pattern recognition method. The new liner for pattern recognition control is the result of research conducted at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (formerly the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago), and will ultimately lead to a system that embeds electrodes into a prosthetic liner, giving users greater comfort, consistency, and intuitive control of their myoelectric devices, according to the companies. The target release date is 2018.
“We are excited to partner with Coapt to provide a new leading-edge interface option for the upper-extremity prosthetic market,” said Matthew Wernke, PhD, applied research engineer at WillowWood. “Our complementary technologies are supported by years of research, development, and patient testing”