The Bionic Hand

The Bionic Hand

http://www.wsj.com/articles/patients-in-new-study-are-able-to-use-thoughts-to-control-bionic-hands-1424826002

This past week news of a revolutionary bionic hand was released by the Wall Street Journal.  Contained within the article was information regarding a new device combined with an existing method to restore the use of an individual's limb.  Three Austrian men were taken and used to perform tests.  Within the tests the men had their damaged nerves replaced by using nerves from the leg.  Using the signals that were then able to be transmitted through these nerves the subject's hand was amputated and replaced with the new "bionic" hand.  The subjects were tested prior to amputation with a hybrid hand to ensure amputation was not unwarranted.

The amputation of a limb should never be taken lightly but what happened next was nothing short of a revolutionary feat.  Following the amputation and replacement of the hand the subjects were able to use their new hands once more.  After not being able to use their limbs for 5-20 years, depending on the subject, this was a remarkable and life changing device.

I know many of you are thinking "who cares?" or "okay... So aren't there already other prosthetic hands?"  The answer is most certainly yes there are other options for limb replacement.  However, most prosthetic arms or hands are very difficult to make close to a real one.  Some problems are signal transduction, precision, and issues pertaining to delay time for the signals to be processed by the robot.  To compensate for signal transduction issues some devices have been developed to receive signals directly from a chip implanted in the brain.  These however are only bio-compatible for maximum approximately two years then must be replaced.  In addition the chip cannot be replaced an infinite number of times.  The software used in the devices is extremely sensitive due to the very small signals that the devices receive from the nerves or brain.  Moreover the reaction time of most devices is very slow which is somewhat inadequate for the everyday person's daily tasks.

When I saw this prosthetic it seems like it has some promise.  It looks like it would be a viable option for people to consider if they were in a similar position as the men the tests were performed with.  In the video provided it seemed as if the new hand had fixed some of the problems I have mentioned.  Having said that, is this the best solution that we can make? Or could we try to make a procedure to replace the nerves to make the biological hand work again?  Do we rely too much on exterior computers and such to fix these problems?  I think this is a great use of our resources and that it could solve many people's problems and give new life to some.  However I think we must be wary of the efficacy of this device and see if it works for a larger pool of people before we start transforming into Inspector Gadget.