Ask Slashdot: What Would You Look For In a Prosthetic Hand?

Arglebarf writes "A family member is recovering from a serious illness and, unfortunately, the medication that saved her life will probably cost her hands and feet. She is an artist by trade, so this is a pretty big deal. Replacement prostheses might restore a degree of independence, as well as enabling her to continue with her creative passions. Do any Slashdotters have experience with replacement hands? What features do you look for? Do any models allow you tweak the software for fine tuning? Beyond the day-to-day uses, she will want something that can hold small objects precisely (e.g. a paintbrush)."

Comments

Dean Kamen - Luke

[iiii]

Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway, has been working on much more functional prosthetics. He named his bionic arm "Luke", an obvious reference we can all appreciate. Demos of it look pretty amazing. Here's the official page for it: http://www.dekaresearch.com/deka_arm.shtml Also google "Kamen Luke Arm" and you find lots of pix, vids and articles about it.

Re:Dean Kamen - Luke

[whoever57]

Had Been. Is no more.

Reading comprehension fail. The person who died was the owner of the segway company, one Jimi Heselden, not Dean Kamen.

Heselden, chairman of Hesco Bastian and a former miner who earned millions from defense contracts, purchased the Segway company in early 2010.

Re:Dean Kamen - Luke

[sp332]

I used to work at DEKA. I didn't work on the Luke arm, but I got to talk to the engineers and a couple of early adopters. I think it is a great idea for an artist. The arm's controls are modular. They accept many different kinds of inputs, and the actions are even programmable with macros. You can get hand, wrist, forearm, elbow, upper arm, or shoulder configurations. It is as light as a 50th percentile female arm (including the batttery!). It's precise enough to pick up a grape without crushing it. It allows enough finesse in multiple degrees of freedom to allow a double-amputee to eat cereal without spilling it (which Dean Kamen jokes even he can't do :) I saw a guy use a macro to control an electric drill to handle the changing torque while he controlled how fast the drill went. I think it would be a great choice for an artist.

Mouth will probably work better than prosthetics

[Big_Breaker]

For paint brushes and other small items I imagine holding them in her mouth will work better than current prosthetic hands.

You may be thinking about the robotic hands you can see in research clips but most available prosthetics are simple devices that open and close with a turn of the forearm.

The robotic hands suffer from difficulty getting a "close/open hand" signal from the brain. Implanted electrodes are all to some degree incompatible with human tissue and degrade over time. Sensors to read electrical signals through the skin are imprecise. Some versions use buttons manipulated by other body parts (likely toes in this case) but these are not in the mainstream.

The old fashion two finger hooks seem to be the most practical answer for a lot of people. They are cheaper, durable, don't require batteries and can do a lot of useful things with any fine motor manipulation.

A human hand is a marvel of biological engineering. Sadly it is tough to replicate in a prosthetic. Perhaps she would be a good candidate for a transplant down the road? Prosthetics may improve more quickly with so many vets having suffered limb loss. To date lower limb prosethetics seem to be well ahead of hands/arms in terms of matching the original limb's functionality. Lots of "below the knee" single amputies have no obvious impairment in terms of gait.

What kind of artist?

[50000BTU_barbecue]

If you need touch, you might want to consider Krukenberg hands, which are gruesome to Westerners but are often the only viable option for many people.

I'll let you google it whenever you feel ready. Some people are more sensitive than others.