Slashdot Mirror
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)."
a cold beer!
... I wish there was a tasteful way to make a Star Wars joke.
Artists always find a way of creating.
--- rapper/producer/bachelorette party stripper
A prosthetic bird
If at all possible. It isn't too far fetched, hand and forearm transplants have been made, and have even achieved sensorial feedback.
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.
Light cup, beer drink, thin so chain, neck turtle fat, man I won't say it again
Lasers.
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.
Technology is moving very fast. State of the art today won't be in 5 year. I would want a system that I could disconnect the replacement part(s) and connect up new ones without surgery. This also allows for custom limbs for specific tasks. Holding a brush may be a custom limb. I may also want a custom chainsaw arm, too.
I want flexibility for change & all the specifications for the mating connector to my body to be open source or license/patent free so I can have custom limbs made. I want a copy of the specs for the same reason.
I'll let you google it whenever you feel ready. Some people are more sensitive than others.
Mostly random stuff.
I can't be the only one who's thinking it needs to support a Fleshlight attachment...
This prosthetic hand is for a woman, who is going to lose her hands. Are you fucking serious that this is the best thing you can think of to say?
funky49 has taken the high ground...
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I may also want a custom chainsaw arm, too.
I think S-Mart sells those in the landscaping section.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Spring clip instead of a magnet on a ball joint or two and off-the-shelf art supplies can be used.
Sadly hand technology is not advancing at the same pace as leg/foot technology.
Phil
Laugh, it's good for you!
Sign me up for three.
I'll find room.
Ask the fucking prosthetics guy that will get/make her a new one when the time comes. I mean he is qualified to actually give opinions. How many people on here that would respond to you are going to actually have a prosthetic or even know anything about how they work/perform in the real world? None. Im sure some will say they have one or "Know a friend of a friends former roomates neighbor that one" but bottom line is they don't know dick.
This question is as stupid as asking for legal advice online in a murder trial. Its the internet, 98% of your answers will come from people who don't know shit but think they do.
>medication that saved her life will probably cost her hands and feet.
What kind of medication causes you to lose your hands and feet?
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Given the theme of this website and the users that theme attracts, there will likely be few traditional artists, and of those, a ridiculously small segment with any experience using a prosthetic hand.
If you wanted to know which type of prosthetic hand can best run a Model M, maybe /. is the place.
First, ask her what will be important. She'll be using the thing.
Then, ask fora dedicated to prostheses and artists what they suggest.
Unless your question is about BitCoin and I misread it, in which case I apologize.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krukenberg_procedure
You ever read "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress"? I'd want one like Manny's, with interchangeable tools.
I saw some things here:
http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/5-year-old-gets-3-d-printed-robohand-internet-collaborators-1B8242915
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:44150
I'm not sure if it would work for an artist, but it is supposed to be low-cost.
geek with black glove over prosthesis? that's totally Dr. Strangelove
One benefit to the wars we've been fighting, is the advancement of trauma-related medical technology. So many soldiers are surviving injuries that would have killed them in previous generations, leaving them with missing limbs instead. This in turn is advancing prosthetic technology quite a bit.
I expect that we'll see some really great prosthetics on the market over the next couple decades that will put existing ones to shame. Whatever prosthetic this family member gets in the immediate future, she'll probably be able to upgrade to something that improves her quality of life dramatically fairly soon regardless.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
Sorry for shouting. But save the nerves. I run a regen med research lab, and there is lots of cool stuff coming down the pipe. I know, I know, Real Soon Now, but advancements are on the way. The big limitation is going to be nerves though. No matter how much cool stuff we put together with artificial bone and patient-specific stem-cell derived muscles etc, it's all moot if you can't control it properly, and the nerves, for a variety of reasons, will be the hardest part to regenerate.
Fortunately, there has been some really interesting work done in terms of rerouting the nerves (both motor and sensory) - basically, if the nerves don't attach to anything, they die. But, if before you amputate, you take the nerves and move the ends over so they now lie against skin and muscle etc that will not be amputated, the cells remain alive (and functional). This has lots of interesting applications in terms of interfacing with prosthetics, but also in 5 or 10 years (or longer, if so - sorry, everything is often slower and more complex than we hope), this means the nerves are still there, waiting to be connected to the regenerated limb. Here is one paper that discusses it in more detail:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2685921/
I don't want to give you too much false hope about where the technology is going - I am very excited about the potential, but there are still a number of obstacles. So, live for today, but there is hope for tomorrow as well.
MU
My dad lost both hands and most of his forearms as a child. He has always preferred to use his own stumps as-is, rather than mucking about with prosthetics. But then he learnt to use his arms at an early age, and he was determined to do everything he could.
He can do practically everything you or I could do, except for things he simply can't reach or that require juggling to many things too rapidly. He has the neatest "handwriting" of anyone I know, he types by holding a pen, he can drive a car, develop software, and he's built a house extension. As an adult he's always been a productive member of society.
While you may develop the dexterity to use a prothethic. Don't discount the potential usefulness of your remaining limbs just as they are.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
Electrodes of any kind implanted directly into the brain are an insanely high risk for infection. That's why we do it to chimps instead of people. Nobody wants meningitis, but I'd rather a chimp get sacrificed in the name of science than condemn a human to the same fate, even though chimps are essentially the same as us.
Brain implanted electrodes also can't really be removed, so once they're in, they're there forever. Or at least until they're metabolized and worn down beyond use. They also have a high risk for acute immune reactions, which cause the brain to swell up rapidly, causing terrible problems similar to coma complications, and cerebral hemorrhage.
Direct brain implanted electrodes are absolutely Not ready for prime time.
So let's keep working on them, and experimenting, and looking for alternatives. I'm a strong believer that eventually we'll have nano-tech that can cross the blood brain barrier, appear invisible to the immune system, set up shop in our brains, figure them out, and open up an API of some kind for us, so we'll be able to store our own personal memories and life feed directly to silicon, or receive memories, training, and data directly from the silicon (or whatever we're using) via these nanites that have worked their way into the brain. This is quite futuristic, but I feel it's an endgame to nano-tech. We'll eventually be able to use it to maintain the health of our bodies, and use it as storage space and up-links to others in our brain.
Hectice, baby, Mercator says hello to you