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Bionic Hands to Become a Reality Soon?

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the can-you-handle-it dept.

Spy der Mann writes "A highly dexterous, bio-inspired artificial hand and sensory system that could provide patients with active feeling, is being developed by a European project called cyberhand. The final prototype includes sensors for tension, force, joint angle, end stroke and contact."

7 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Bionics ,Cybernetics and Faulty Software? by RealisticCanadian · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So, while this stuff is very kewl, and in particular I've been following development on artificial hands (as far as I know, only the face is more complex), it raises in me the question of what it will bring with it in the near future....

    Cybernetic implants are under development as well, including the borg-like communications chip that most of us would have seen on 'How William Shatner changed the Universe'

    So on top of all the typical moral concerns this subject raises, in the days when we're as much technology as human being, what will be the complications when our complex implants' OS gives us the equivalent of the BSOD?

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    1. Re:Bionics ,Cybernetics and Faulty Software? by Dread_ed · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "So on top of all the typical moral concerns this subject raises"

      I don't have any moral concerns about this technology or others like it. All I feel when I see research like this is hope.

      Growing up I watched my father struggle with activities that most of us take for granted. I am not just referring to walking and picking things up, but breathing and being able to get out of bed to see his children growing up. You see, he was in the last wave of people who had Polio before the vaccine was developed and released. He had a pretty bad case (iron lung, coma for about a year) and had to live with permanent physical deformities and constant pain.

      So, whether it is a hand for someone who has lost theirs, sensory enchancement for someone with nerve damage, or a neural implant for someone with a head injury, I am all for it. People should not have to suffer if applied science and medicine can overcome it. If I have a moral concern it is that we need to develop this technology (and others in the same ilk) as fast as possible and we are not doing it.

      In my opinion this is where medicine needs to go. This kind of research should take it's place with cancer and pathogen research when it comes to funding and effort invested. What good is all this cancer research if you are so tired of living that you are begging to die when you finally do get it?

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  2. The real question is... by avalys · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Being technically able to produce one of these things is all well and good, but the real question is how long it will be before they cost less than $100,000.

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  3. Re:In other news . . . by Paul+Slocum · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If anyone is going to enforce the patent, it's this man.

  4. Re:Many questions remain unanswered by c_forq · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That makes me wonder, on a serious note, what kind of heat this will produce? Might there be a rick of burning your skin it is attached to if you move too much? Will this cause excess sweating of the forearm? Or the armpit of whatever arm it is attached to? Will others get freaked the hell out when your hand feels really freaking weird when they shake it?

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  5. As a partial thumb amputee... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I suspect it'll be quite a while before we can provide "natural" sensation from a prosthesis.

    I have my own nerve endings in my "repaired" thumbtip, and while 7 years have helped my mind remap what was the center of my thumb to useful tip-of-the-thumb sensations, it still feels strange every single time I touch something. Pressure sensations are the strangest.

    How much harder must it be to try to tap into nerve endings further up the arm and get you to make sense of them?

    BTW: watch what you're doing with your hands. They're out front of you and in danger all day long. It's particularly a bitch to lose use of your favored thumb. Think about learning to do EVERYTHING over again - starting with wiping your tail or pointing your unit - and you'll still not even begin to appreciate how much you do with your thumb and your hands.

    Recipients of prostheses such as these will have that difficult learning curve, probably moreso since a computer is mediating - but are assuredly fortunate to have the opportunity to do so.

  6. Re:Nerve Endings? by c_fel · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Actually they can use the nerves that usally fit the best for the movements needed. But anyway, it doesn't have to be the exact same nerve : it's sure that a full reeducation is necessary. First, the feelings won't be the same as the ones the patient is used to. Second, the arm won't react exactly like a true arm.

    But the brain is very capable to learn how to manipulate the new arm : it just takes minutes to actually "see" an image with an electrode on the tongue, with eyes shut (with the electrode connected on a camera). The brain learns that what it receives now on the tongue is a visual information and not a taste. So the fact that we usually don't see with our tongue is not a matter. It's the samething with the feeling of the new arm.

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