What Role Do We Play In The Evolution Of Prosthetics

Many veterans are missing major limbs, and are very handicapped making work and everyday life a huge struggle. There are prosthetic legs and arms that can be used, but they often take a long time to learn, and are very costly. In a recent interview with NBC News, a veteran by the name of Mike Kacer explains how the government spent $117,000 providing him with prosthetic arms over the last five years, and he doesn’t even like to use them. "I could actually tie the shoe faster without the prosthesis," Kacer says, and he’s not the only one that feels this way. Many other veterans using these prosthetic limbs eventually abandon them due to painful, unreliable and hard to use reasons. “Of the roughly 1,600 veterans who have suffered major limb losses from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, about 319 have faced amputations of some part of their arms.” (NBC News). Not only is that a lot of money spent on prosthetics that are hard to use, painful, and eventually abandoned, arms rather than legs are a lot harder to use according to research by Gary Berke, a Stanford University instructor who operates a private clinic providing prosthetics. "Walking is relatively straightforward," Berke said. Artificial legs essentially can do everything that real ones do. Artificial arms, however, are not nearly as adept as the real ones. "We're behind the eight ball in terms of

One-fifth of the estimated global total, or between 110 million and 190 million people, experience significant disabilities.” Worldbank is an organization that works in areas of development and they help countries share knowledge and solutions to challenges (http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/disability). In addition to Worldbanks` statistical data on the number of people with disabilities in the U.S., per Serviceandinclusion.org, “an estimated 48.9 million people, or 19.4% of the non-institutionalized civilians, have a disability. An estimated 24.1 million people have a severe disability. An estimated 34.2 million people, or 17.5%, have a functional limitation.

According to Molly Schimdt and Victor Camacho there are more than 2million Americans living with the loss of a limb. Although this is an unfortunate event, there have been numerous professions and implementations to help these individuals matriculate through the process of being an amputee. Over time there has been a growing concern in regards to the elderly and their adaptation to learning. The occupational therapist at Kessler Institute for rehabilitation in Saddle Brook, New jersey have used methods, theories, and their own evidence based research to implement a program that is both client-centered and reliable, to allow adults with prosthetic limbs to adapt in a quicker time. Methods such as Kolb’s learning style intervention, the model

reduce in the functionality of the prosthetic limbs, it also meant that the cost of prosthetic limbs was reduced. The reduction in the cost meant that almost everyone was now able to afford the price of a prosthetic limb, and it was no longer a privileged thing for the rich and powerful, though the prosthetic limbs of the rich and powerful were constructed primarily using more advanced materials.

The DynamicArm is the world’s first elbow joint prosthetic that is controlled by an electric motor. The Vario-Gear transmission allows the prosthetic to react immediately to different movements as well as continuously adapt to changing environments.1 Because of the capabilities of this prosthetic, it is very beneficial for those individuals who are physically active. However, the DynamicArm is suitable for almost all individuals with upper arm or shoulder amputations. Both single and double amputees can benefit from this prosthetic, but compared to other upper extremity prosthetics, the DynamicArm is more beneficial for double amputees. The DynamicArm is suitable for a variety of individuals, regardless of their

Problems with blood circulation, injuries from traffic collusion to military combat, cancer, and birth defects are all reasons why someone may lose a limb. Typically, after a person loses a limb they lose mobility and they can’t do many things by themselves. According the amputee coalition 95 percent of all amputees have a prosthesis. Out of the 95 percent ten percent of them say they do not wear it on a constant basis, 75 percent of them indicated that it was easier to do daily task without the device. What are these devices? There are two main subsets of prosthesis including prosthesis that replaces the limb and then there is cosmesis prosthesis that are just for cosmetic that do not have any function. The main idea of a prosthetic is that

Think of all the things that are taken for granted each and every day because of how accustomed the mind becomes to them; two legs for walking, two eyes from which to see, two ears from which to listen, and a mouth from which to talk. While these abilities may seem basic to most, they mean the world to those who lack these abilities. Thankfully, with advancements in technology and innovation, prosthesis have been introduced and continually improved to give everyone an equal chance at succeeding and enjoying life.

However, current research is looking into the myoelectric prosthesis, which takes electric (and chemical) signals from the patient’s original muscles on their residual limb and then has those signals control the movement of the artificial limb. In 2013, the researchers at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago developed a leg that takes those neural impulses from the patient’s thigh muscles into movement. With the research that is currently being done, soon it will be commonplace for users to control their bionic devices with solely their mind. (114

As author, Andrew Heller said, “Technology is like a fish. The longer it stays on the shelf, the less desirable it becomes” (Farfan, 2016). Heller means that technology must be constantly updated otherwise it will become boring, outdated and undesirable. When at full employment, society can dedicate themselves to work toward technological advancements. A higher education is vital to advance technology far enough to benefit the economy.

There are a myriad of disabilities so it is inevitable that there will be the need for

Take a second, and imagine your life as a teenager, fresh out of college with, aspiring to get a degree in whatever your heart desires. You’ve got lots of ambition and potential. The world is at your fingertips; you can do anything you set your mind to. But one day, tragedy strikes and the unthinkable happens: you lose a limb. Why is not important, but what the future entails is. Let’s say this limb is your right arm, the one you have used all your life to write, eat, type and play the guitar. Now let’s change the scenario a little bit. Instead you’ve lost your legs in a horrific car accident where both were crushed under the weight of the dashboard as your car collided with the 4x4 in front of you. You wake up the next day in the hospital groggy, barely remembering what happened. Shock is the only thing running through your mind the moment you look down to see your legs missing. Your brain thinks they’re still there because yesterday you were just getting out of bed for your morning jog. All that remains are the stubs where your legs used to be and the unbearable thought of being confined to a motorized chair for the rest of your life.

way, the advancement in prosthetics over the past decade or so has been remarkable, and the

to the area of prosthetics because of the lack of money they would get from it. However,

Robots have long fascinated the minds of humans. From bionic men to exoskeletons, robots have long filled the big screens and small screens. But, these technologies have only recently been created through prosthetics. The future of prosthetics will combine body, mind and machine to fix the broken. The goal of the science of prosthetics is to restore the independence of amputees and allow them to do everyday tasks necessary for life that we all take for granted. In the movie Star Wars Episode V, Luke Skywalker replaced his amputated arm with a perfect bionic replacement. During that time, replicating limbs seemed very unlikely.

Medical technologies have vastly improved over the last hundred years and even more so in the last fifty years with new innovations and sometimes just improvements to devices already in use. Computers have been a large part of the newer advances in areas such as prosthetic devices. The advances in computer technology have allowed for advances in medical areas that people had not thought of being possible. Especially, for those who have lost a limb with the most difficult prosthetic being that of the hand. Recent events within the last decade have incurred needs in medical areas that were not quite as prevalent in the past except for birth defects and other medically specific causes. War seems to have generated specific needs for prosthetic