Photographs courtesy of Dustin Tyler, Cleveland VA Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University.
A touch sensitive bionic arm developed by researchers at the Louis Stokes Cleveland Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Ohio, and Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), Cleveland, has been named one of the top ten innovations of 2013 by the online site Innovation Excellence.
Pressure sensors in the device enable the subject to feel when he grasps an object and how tightly he is holding it. Besides enabling a much more natural sense of touch, the CWRU team’s efforts have enabled amputee subjects to control a prosthesis successfully without intense visual concentration on its movements. Test subjects have even been able to successfully pick up and move objects without being able to see them.
According to Innovation Excellence, the arm made the list because “these breakthroughs in connecting electronic devices through the nervous system can eventually enable everything from artificial limbs to sensory organs….”
To learn more, read “Upper-Limb Prosthetics: Seeking the Sense of Touch” in the October issue of The O&P EDGE.
