Designing a cheaper, simpler prosthetic arm

Here’s a video detailing the concept of the new prosthetic arm design. (It features Adam Booher, IPT’s director of product development, and a member of a team of University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign graduates who lead the company)

Most prosthetic arms are custom-made and cost thousands of dollars. But an Illinois-based non-profit, Illini Prosthetic Technologies (IPT), has come up with a much more affordable, pre-made alternative.

It’s operated by simple physical actions to control mechanical hooks that mimic a human hand.

The Open Socket prosthetic arm, as it’s called, is designed primarily for audiences in the developing world, which accounts for 80% of the globe’s 25 million amputees.

It costs a mere $100 dollars, comes in various sizes, and has steadily been gathering awards in recent months.

In August, one of IPT’s founders, Jonathan Naber, won a $10,000 Simon Fellowship for Noble Purpose from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Also in August, the company was named “Inventor of the Month” by software maker Autodesk.

And on November 8, the Open Socket design tied for second place honors in the competition for the 2011 James Dyson Award, a prestigious international design prize. The company has also received funding from the Clinton Global Initiative; Naber won a $30,000 Lemelson MIT-Illinois Student Prize for the prosthetic arm concept in 2010.

An amputee in Illinois lifts a table using a prototype of the Open Socket arm

IPT says their concept is inspired by the evolution of shoe- making from bespoke design businesses to mass-market manufacturing. 

The goal, of course, is to drive down the cost for resource-challenged amputees. So far, IPT has conducted user testing at Northwestern University in Illinois and in Zacapa, Guatemala. The company is currently working to bring the prosthetics to market.

Prosthetics: Polymer for artificial limbs to feel heat, cold, touch

Current prosthetics on the market have come a long way in looking natural, but in the grand scheme of things, they’re quite primitive: the best offer mechanical operation, but they’re missing a decidedly human touch: feeling.

That neurological aspect is vital to a full understanding of the world we live in. Two new studies are investigating how to bring feeling — neural stimulation — to prosthetic limbs.

Physicians at the American Society of Plastic Surgeons “Plastic Surgery 2009″ conference this week in Seattle announced the discovery of a polymer that conducts electricity like a wire and promotes the stimulation and growth of nerve fibers. The molecule — 3, 4-ethylenedioxythiophene, or “PEDOT” — is a promising first step in connecting to severed nerves and providing amputees with more neurological control of their prosthetics.

That translates to the ability to move fingers independently, apply an appropriate amount of pressure to objects (for example, to grab and lift a delicate item) and feel sensation.

In one study, plastic surgeons say they may have found a way to successfully grow new nerve fibers after they’ve been severed in an injury. The PEDOT polymer, along with other biologic and synthetic materials, was grafted onto the severed leg nerve of a rat. New nerve fibers grew and took over function from the severed nerve, reawakening muscles that were unable to be stimulated due to nerve injury.