Slashdot Mirror
Luke Prosthetic Arm Approved By FDA
necro81 writes: "The FDA today approved the Luke prosthetic arm for sale. The Luke Arm, created by Dean Kamen's DEKA R&D Corp., was a project initiated by DARPA to develop a prosthetic arm for wounded warriors more advanced than those previously available. The Arm can be configured for below-the-elbow, above-the-elbow, and shoulder-level amputees. The full arm has 10 powered degrees of freedom and has the look and weight of the arm it replaces. Through trials by DEKA and the Dept. of Veterans Affairs, the Arm has been used by dozens of amputees for a total of many thousands of hours. Commercialization is still pending."
I suspect two main classes of reason (in addition to purely visceral distaste):
1. Prosthetics tend to exploit whatever remnant limb is available, from relatively primitive 'cup' type attachments that fit over a stump all the way to cutting edge nerve interface implants that allow conscious control of the prosthesis. These just aren't available for limbs that humans never have: even in the case of complete amputation, you still get to take advantage of the skeleton being set up for a load-bearing attachment in a given location, not so if a limb doesn't go there.
2. In practice, humans use 'prosthetic' aids all the time, they just don't imitate limbs all that closely and are often left at the work site. Just think of all the various clamps, vises, jigs, tripods, stands, etc, etc, etc, that act as 3rd through Nth hands during operations that require them. It tends to be far easier and cheaper to skip trying to replicate the (highly complex, but very versatile) structure of the hand and just knock together some relatively simple, task specific, tool, possibly a collection of them used for a sequence of assembly operations.
...does the FDA have to approve a non-implanted prosthetic? Why are prosthetics so expensive?
Keep in mind that the technology behind the Segway wasn't invented for the Segway; it was invented for this wheelchair.
The Segway got the attention because it's something that had the potential to have a much broader market, considering that the population that can't walk is pretty small.
Be careful what you wish for. Do you want to hear at your next job interview "We'd hire you, but since your limb cannot be replaced with a tool we want, you'll be 20% slower than someone who can. Of course, if you're willing to throw away your arm for the tool... What, if you really wanted the job you'd go that extra inch. You're just not committed, but we'll find someone who is".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.